Pool Me Twice, Shame On You

Summary

Pod Save America: “Pool Me Twice, Shame On You”

Date: June 23, 2026
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor
Special Guests: Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan (New York Times)

---

Episode Overview

This episode delivers Pod Save America's signature no-b******t run-down of another wild week in American politics, tackling the volatile Iran “peace” deal, spiraling corruption scandals in DC, the farcical—and now frightening—reflecting pool fiasco, and unfiltered insights from journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan on the Trump White House, drawn from their new book, Regime Change. Expect all the trademark wit, skepticism, and WTF energy the Crooked team brings to dissecting the week’s headlines.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

1. Iran Deal: Progress or Surrender?

(02:17–07:31)

• Diplomatic Developments: Trump’s bid for a U.S.–Iran peace deal is in flux—one moment, ceasefire is holding; the next, Iran threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump retorts with oil-seizure threats.
• J.D. Vance’s Role: Trump has made Vance the public negotiator, announcing supposed progress (Strait open, flare-up mechanism with Hezbollah, access for nuclear inspectors) but offers little confirmation or detail.
• Sanctions Relief: U.S. waived oil sanctions for Iran for 60 days, worth up to $10B—the first such move since the Obama era.
  • Quote (Jon Lovett, 08:33): “Steve Ratner on Twitter said the oil waivers could bring them $10 billion in sanctions relief just from oil sales. ... In the JCPOA we didn’t give any sanctions relief until they allowed inspectors in. ... Here, sanctions relief has happened, but not a single inspector’s set foot inside.”
• Hosts’ Analysis:
  • Tommy expresses skepticism: “Iran has all the leverage ... Trump doesn’t want to go back to war and has given up all his leverage.” (09:16)
  • Favreau notes the deal so far is weaker than Obama’s JCPOA: “I’m just waiting for something to happen in which Iran has conceded more ... As of right now, how different would it look if Iran had just said, ‘We’re closing the Strait of Hormuz unless you give us a bunch of concessions’?” (07:31)

---

2. Republican Fractures Over Iran Policy

(11:13–17:52)

• GOP Turmoil:
  • Biden-like splits between hardliner hawks and Trump loyalists; Tucker Carlson denounces the party, Lindsey Graham threatens military seizure of the Strait.
  • “Are the fractures here getting worse or better?” (12:10).
• Washington’s War Coverage: Favreau and Vietor blast mainstream booking of “discredited” hawks like Graham and criticize media war bias.
  • Quote (Tommy Vietor, 15:59): “It’s just so fundamentally unserious and he’s such a discredited individual … but war is covered in Washington so that the hawkish view is the ‘serious’ view.”

---

3. Voter Attitudes on the Iran Conflict

(16:21–19:43)

• Polls Saying ‘End It’: CBS poll shows 70% of Americans say the war wasn’t worth the cost; even 60% of Republicans want it over now.
• Public Disillusionment:
  • Vietor: “70% of the country says this was not worth the cost. You don’t get 70 for much.”
  • Lovett: “There’s an expectation … things are going to get better financially … but I think it’s going to take a bit of time.”

---

4. Reflecting Pool Fiasco Moves from Farce to Authoritarianism

(22:56–33:55)

• Draining the Swamp—Literally: Trump’s friend and convicted felon, John Cafaro, got a $14M no-bid contract to “renovate” the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is now riddled with algae and leaks.
• Trump’s Meltdown: Fails to admit error—blames “vandals” with box cutters, the deep state, even former Olympians reaching into the water.
  • Quote (Trump, 25:06): “We have a, I think, 290, 300 foot slit right through it. Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind.”
  • Quote (Favreau, 28:19): “Now you’ve turned what was a silly and ultimately small story about a pool renovation into gross incompetence, corruption, and rising fascism.”
• Escalating Tactics: Arrests random people as supposed saboteurs; the hosts mock the administration’s panicked attempts to control optics.
  • Quote (Lovett, 30:37): “It is a lie on the level of, like, now we’re back to Sean Spicer and the inaugural crowd.”
  • Favreau: “These are perfect metaphors for what this administration has done ... It’ll stay with people because it’s all so stupid and this is what’s taking up the President’s time.” (31:10)
• Metaphor for Trumpism: Incompetence, grift, scapegoating—the saga “perfectly encapsulates” Trump-era governance.

---

5. The Qatari Jet—Corruption at 40,000 Feet

(33:55–39:47)

• Air Force None: Trump’s new “Qatari Force One,” originally to be purchased for $150-200M, instead appears as a “gift” from Qatar, after the POTUS intervenes (pending more than $400M in taxpayer retrofitting).
  • Trump brags about its “level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before.” (34:41)
  • The hosts see it as a monument to corruption and the evaporation of Trump’s carefully-constructed "wealthy, incorruptible" image.
  • Quote (Tommy Vietor, 36:17): “This has really become a monument to the corruption, and it really broke through ... and I do think this is a big problem for him politically, to the extent that he cares.”
  • Quote (Favreau, 37:36): "Behind him is the proof that he is the most corrupt leader on earth. Maybe the most corrupt ... president in American history right there on the tarmac.”

---

6. National Intelligence in the Hands of a Conman

(44:27–48:55)

• Bill Pulte as Acting DNI: After months of wrangling, Trump loyalist and social media grifter Bill Pulte takes over as acting Director of National Intelligence (following Tulsi Gabbard, herself now revealed to be linked to a cult-like group).
• Deep State Purge & Chaos: Pulte rumored to be unleashing firings; Democrats and even some Republicans scramble, but Trump’s true motivation is unclear—revenge, chaos, or more grift.
  • Quote (Tommy Vietor, 47:14): “Does he want Pulte to root around for dirt on his enemies ... or a purge of DNI employees? ... Jay Clayton [the supposed permanent pick] would be happy to do that, too.”

---

7. Tulsi Gabbard’s Cult Ties Exposed

(47:44–52:23)

• Washington Post Bombshell: Gabbard allegedly directed for years by a religious cult.
  • Haberman: “It’s one of those things where because it’s coming out after she’s gone, it’s like, ‘Well, she shouldn’t be DNI.’ Well, and she’s not.”
• Control and Influence: Extensive documentation shows Gabbard parroting talking points from the cult leader near-verbatim; hosts express shock this could go undetected in high office.
• Meta-point: The Trump admin’s lack of vetting and weirdness “off the charts.”

---

8. Clemency Corruption—Selling Pardons for Cash

(53:15–59:47)

• NYT Expose: Trump commutes sentence of massive fraudster David Gentile after apparent payments to intermediaries—including a friend-of-Trump retired priest.
  • Quote (Jon Favreau, 55:10): “There is daylight here between Trump and some around him ... I do think there’s just an incredible amount of corruption.”
  • Lovett and Vietor argue this is exactly the kind of thing the next Congress (if Democratic) must investigate—selling pardons, Trump grifting for himself and cronies.

---

Interview: Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan, Regime Change

(62:50–end)

Top Insights:

• Trump’s 2nd Term: A Different Beast
  • Haberman: “He is coming back to Washington with a very, very different climate—a completely cowed Republican Congress...and he has very happily wielded that power.” (65:44)
  • “He views himself...as a ‘great man of history’, a sort of Napoleonic figure.” (65:44)
• Corruption As Systemic
  • The “Qatari jet” and secret crypto deals mark a new era of obvious, unapologetic grift.
  • Trump, family, and inner circle see themselves as “owed” for perceived sacrifices. Legal loopholes (“no law prohibits this”) enable it.
  • Swan: “We only know 1%—maybe 5%—of what’s actually going on.” (76:45)
• Presidential Library Slush Fund
  • Trump wants to raise $2 billion (double Obama’s) for an ostentatious Miami tower; Eric Trump and others hit up Gulf monarchies and U.S. billionaires.
• Trump’s White House Management
  • Day-to-day operations are unstructured “bull sessions”—decorators interrupt national security meetings, key cabinet members routinely out of the loop.
  • Information diet is a triple-bubble of Fox News, sycophants, and staffers paid to print “positive news.” (82:28)
  • Trump’s “advisor” literally sits in Oval Office to Google facts on command.
• Epstein Files: The Scandal That Stuck
  • Trump’s team failed to handle his deep, long-standing Epstein connection—the only scandal that “the base just wasn’t listening [to spin].”
• Succession, Power Games, and Chaos
  • The veepstakes (J.D. Vance vs. Rubio) are ongoing performance art for Trump—he savors the contest and keeps his inner circle off balance.
  • Foreign policy run by cronies with no experience, especially in Ukraine/Russia; real estate moguls serve as impromptu envoys.
  • Quote, regarding Steve Witkoff’s Russia “diplomacy” (Swan): “He thought it would be very easy to end this war ... he genuinely thought he could end this conflict very quickly and has been quite frustrated that it hasn’t.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jon Lovett on the reflecting pool spat:
  “You’ve turned what was a silly and ultimately small story about a pool renovation into gross incompetence, corruption, and rising fascism.” (28:19)

• Trump, on the reflecting pool damage:
  “We have a 350 foot slit from one end to the other ... you think that’s proof?” (25:21)

• Tommy Vietor on Trumpist corruption:
  “This is really a monument to corruption ... it’s really pierced that narrative [that Trump doesn’t need to grift].” (36:17)

• Maggie Haberman (re: difference in terms):
  “This is not 2017 anymore. ... Trump himself has been thinking about various aspects of this presidency … one of which he’s been very open about: retribution.” (65:44)

• Jonathan Swan quoting Trump’s “great men”:
  “He literally handed us this two-page document ... It compared him to the ‘top 10:’ Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun ... He was relishing this comparison.” (67:19)

• Maggie Haberman on Trump’s information diet:
  “This is an almost impenetrable triple bubble that Donald Trump exists in.” (82:28)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |-----------------------------------------------------|-----------------| | Iran Deal Breakdown | 02:17–07:31 | | GOP Fracture Over Iran | 11:13–17:52 | | Reflecting Pool/Trump Crony Corruption | 22:56–33:55 | | Qatari Jet/Presidential Library Fund Corruption | 33:55–39:47 | | DNI Saga / Tulsi Gabbard’s Cult Ties | 44:27–52:23 | | Selling Pardons Exposé | 53:15–59:47 | | Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan Interview | 62:50–99:00 |

---

The Pod Save America Tone

The tone remains equally sharp, incredulous, and darkly comic throughout. The hosts blend contempt for official gaslighting with gallows humor—never shying from labeling Trumpist claims as “absurd,” and always eager to explicate the deeper, distressing corruption behind the week’s clownish news.

---

Summary

This episode exposes the unique blend of incompetence, self-interest, and authoritarian impulse shaping current U.S. governance—offering listeners clarity, context, and a break from the performative “seriousness” of Beltway coverage. The Haberman/Swan interview, in particular, paints a chilling portrait of a president unbound, surrounded by sycophants, obsessed with his historical legacy, and presiding over an ever-more transactional and chaotic government.

---

For listeners or readers short on time:

• Want the best overview of Trump’s current White House? Fast forward to 62:50 for the in-depth interview.
• For a capsule of the week’s political absurdity, the Reflecting Pool debacle (22:56–33:55) and the Qatari “gift” jet (33:55–39:47) are concise metaphors for this era.

---

Pod Save America: Sifting truth from farce, and asking—if you’re not laughing, are you paying attention?

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

Pod Save America is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Summer is here, which means cookouts, pool parties, and wondering if your packages will still be there when you get back from vacation. Or you could skip the worry altogether. With Simplisafe. I set up a Simplisafe. It's easy to do. You can customize it to your home, it comes in the mail. You can set up in a matter of minutes. You don't have to drill or anything. It's very easy to do. Then the app is great, easy to use and the customer support, incredibly reliable, Gives you peace of mind.

[Tommy Vietor]

With Simplisafe, kept your package safe.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. That's right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

Kept my package safe, man.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's all there.

[Jon Favreau]

It's all there. With Simplisafe, there are no long term contracts or hidden cancellation fees. They earn your business by keeping you safe, not by trapping you in a contract. You can customize your system to fit your needs. Then it ships fast directly to your door. The app guided setup is simple and there's no drilling required. So you can install and arm your system in under an hour. Simplisafe is more than just a security camera. It's a comprehensive system of sensors and indoor and outdoor cameras. 247 professional monitoring. Over 5 million people value and trust Simplisafe with their home security every day. Right now, our listeners will get 50% off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring. And your first month is free. Just visit simplisafe.com crooked that's half off. At simplisafe.com crooked there is no safe like Simplisafe.

[Tommy Vietor]

Start your morning with the news that matters. Every day. NPR is up first brings you the three biggest stories in under 15 minutes. They go into what happened and why it matters. It's short and thorough, fact based and personable with national and international news and one easy listen. Listen to up first from npr, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maggie Haberman]

I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.

[Jon Lovett]

Start your free [e-mail]. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm Jon Levitt, Tom Evitor.

[Jon Lovett]

On today's show, we'll talk about the latest developments in the on again, off again war peace deal with Iran, which seems to be playing its hand better than master negotiator J.D. vance. We'll also get into the Reflecting Pool drama, which has gone from farce to fascist. As federal agents start arresting people Trump's accusing of phantom vandalism. Plus, the President unveils his new Qatari jet. Bill Pulte officially takes over as acting dni. It appears that the outgoing DNI might have been under the influence of a cult leader. And we'll talk about the potentially criminal lobbying campaign behind Trump's decision to spring a convicted fraudster from jail. Then New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan talk to Tommy about their explosive new book, Regime Change, which is full of fascinating revelations about Trump's second term. White House. Did you think better of Donald Trump after reading?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think he's just misunderstood. And he's a good guy. He's just doing his best. You know, he's got a moral core.

[Jon Lovett]

This is good.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, it's a. The. It's a really good book. I really spent the day just inhaling it. And even for sickos like us that follow this stuff closely, you learn a lot about the process, the kind of narrative around how these decisions actually got made, what it's really like in the Oval Office. It's really, really good.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. As someone who doesn't read books but is also a sicko, I think I'm going to read this one.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're going to like it. You're going to like it. Yeah, it's a page turner.

[Jon Lovett]

All right, let's talk about how the Memo of Versailles is holding up. As of this recording, both the US and Iran are now saying that the peace talks in Switzerland are going well and that they're making progress, though it certainly didn't seem like that over the weekend, the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon briefly fell apart. Iran announced it closed the strait again. The US Said that wasn't true. And then Trump demanded that Iran rein in Hezbollah or the US Would resume bombing for good measure. He also threatened to take over the Strait of Hormuz and seize 20% of the oil that passes through it, which is something that he can definitely do. J.D. vance, who Trump has generously made the face of America's surrender to Iran, cited three points of progress on Monday. One, he said the US and Iran agreed on measures to keep the strait open. Two, they agreed on a mechanism to diffuse flare ups between Israel and Hezbollah. And three, he said that Iran has agreed to let international nuclear weapons inspectors into the country for the first time since Trump tore up Obama's Iran deal, though we haven't seen confirmation of that yet from the Iranians. In exchange, the U.S. has agreed to waive sanctions on Iranian oil for 60 days. First time we've done that in, like, four decades. So congrats to Iran. Trump got asked about all this at a signing event in the Oval on Monday, just before we recorded, where he showed off his absolute command of what's going on.

[Jon Favreau]

If there's a war with Iran, that could cause a worldwide depression, as you noted, Mr. President, are you willing to risk economic catastrophe and strike Iran again?

[Donald Trump]

Well, not the way I'm doing it. It's not going to cause depression.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, but if they don't abide by the military.

[Donald Trump]

Well, nuclear weapon supersedes depression. Depression is real bad. Nuclear weapon will cause depression.

[Jon Lovett]

Can you ensure that the Iranians won't use profits from oil sales to rebuild their military?

[Donald Trump]

Well, they're not supposed to be doing that, so we'll see. But they're supposed to use money to buy food for their people because right now their people are very hungry. As long as they respect us, we're going to be fine.

[Jon Lovett]

What do you think? You think they're going to use all that money to buy food for their people?

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

And then show us nothing but respect?

[Tommy Vietor]

For sure.

[Jon Favreau]

There's nothing. There's nothing to stop them from using the money to buy whatever they want with it. There's no. That's not part of the deal. There's no deal. There's nothing.

[Jon Lovett]

He wanted to say that we're actually going to benefit from this because if they buy food, they're going to buy food from us. So really, the money finds its way back to us. That's. Yeah, that's actually what he's about. Dude, it's crazy.

[Jon Favreau]

I hope you enjoy Dunkaroos over there.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, who doesn't.

[Jon Lovett]

Who doesn't want some? Now, Tommy, what do you make of the latest developments? Are we in a better place? A worse place? The same place, too? Hard to tell.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, per that reporter's question about could the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz lead to an economic calamity and, you know, like famine in places like Africa? I think we're in a worse place because over the last week, Iran has signaled that they are willing to happily close the Strait or Hormuz again, or at least announce it's closed. And I think what folks have to remember is like, this is not a valve that goes on and off. This is a bunch of economic decisions made by shipping companies who are thinking to ourselves, we have these giant tankers, I could send it to the Strait of Hormuz, I could send it somewhere else. If there's a 3% chance it gets stuck in there for a couple weeks because the Iranians fire off ballistic missiles or something worse could happen. They get shot at. That's a big capital expenditure that could go to the bottom of the ocean for them. And so I'm worried about this just kind of bumping along in an unsettled fashion for a while. I'm worried about ongoing high energy prices. I'm worried about the shortage of fertilizer shipments which are already going to show up too late to hit a lot of crops and are going to lead to lower yields and less food for people and higher prices and more hunger and then the like. Whatever this mechanism is to solve the flare ups between Hezbollah and Israel, I don't buy that for a second.

[Jon Lovett]

What is it like a conflicting cell?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's probably like a conference call, but like again, the Israelis, they're not pulling troops out of Lebanon. They're occupying six miles of territory into Lebanon. Hezbollah is going to attack them, the IDF will respond, and then it's going to lead to these events. So I just, I don't feel great about it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I would say we're better off in peace talks than we were when there were no peace talks. We're better off not being in war than we were when we were at war. We are worse off than we were before the war started. And we are worse off than we were when there was the JCPOA in place. All these hawks who were trying to find their way to justify supporting this deal or not being as critical of this deal. I'm just waiting for something to happen in which Iran has conceded more or given more than they did under the horrible, unacceptable, worst deal in history made by Obama. I'm waiting for one thing where they've given, given up more. Because as of right now, how different would it look if Iran had said we are shutting the Strait of Hormuz unless until you negotiate a better deal with us, like we are gonna, like, you know what I mean? If, like we had not launched a war, but Iran had just said we're closing the Strait of Hormuz unless you give us a bunch, until you give us a bunch of concessions, I don't know how Much different it would look than this. Right.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, I saw that Steve Ratner on Twitter said that the oil waivers could bring them $10 billion in sanctions relief just from just oil sales. Right? From all the. Yeah, right, right.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's a sanction, there's a 60 day sanction to waiver on oil sales. Those sales could be up to $10 billion.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, also he noted that in the JCPOA we didn't give any sanctions of relief until they allowed the inspectors into Iran. We have, you know, Besant sort of posted today that there was that the sanctions relief has happened, although they asked Trump about that. Then he's like, I'm not sure. I have to check in on that. And they haven't allowed a single weapons inspector into the country, nor have they even confirmed what JD Vance said about this, that they are willing to do so.

[Tommy Vietor]

And the devil is the details there. And remember, the JCPOA had lots of IAEA access and inspections, but the Republicans were mad that they would have to give 24 hour notice for certain sites like snap inspections. Right. Like he has to be able to go to wherever you want, whenever you want it, so you can't move shit around. Look, yeah, I'm like Lovett, I'm like, glad we're in talks. I'm glad there's not an ongoing conflict. The devil is in the details here. And also we're still sending like these hapless idiots like J.D. vance and Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner and the Iranians are sending nuclear experts who have nothing better to do and nothing but time to grind them down. And they also know that Trump doesn't want to go back to war and has given up all his leverage, which just doesn't make me confident that we are going to get a better JCPOA again. I want the war over. I'm not some hawk attacking him for the right here, but just sort of like realistically looking at the, the setup now after the war started and ended and now we're here, like Trump's leverage is just gone. He's given the sanctions relief. The threat of military action is gone. I just don't know how you get to a better deal.

[Jon Lovett]

Did anyone happen to catch JD Vance's interview with Ross Douthit pieces? Yeah, when they talked about this and it was interesting because a lot of the things JD Vance said as people who don't want the war to go on like us, I was like, oh, that's good. You know, that's a good case. But where he really stumbled or I think just lied. Was talking about the jcpoa, like, at one point, he's like, the difference, the real difference between this deal and the Obama deal is the Obama deal just let them have all this enriched uranium that now this deal we're going to get to take away. That's the opposite.

[Tommy Vietor]

Literally.

[Jon Lovett]

I thought I was going to, I was going to text you about it, but I feel like I'll ask you here on the pot, like, didn't they enrich all the uranium after he pulled out of the deal?

[Tommy Vietor]

Under the JCPOA, they shipped out 97% of their stockpile. It went to Russia, where they disposed of it. Under this deal, they're talking about down blending it inside and keeping it in the country. It's the opposite of what he's saying.

[Jon Lovett]

Ridiculous. Ross did not press him on that. So we've talked a lot lately about how Republicans are coping with this. They continue to be all over the map, from kissing Trump's ass to threatening new wars, to open revolt. Let's take a listen. If we have inspectors going in there

[Maggie Haberman]

and if that straight is open for

[Jon Lovett]

business and and yet oil is flowing,

[Tommy Vietor]

then I think it's very clear the

[Jon Lovett]

United States will have won this conflict.

[Jon Favreau]

If this fails, President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force. The United States will control the Strait

[Maggie Haberman]

of Hormuz, will charge a fee for

[Jon Favreau]

all those who go through through to pay for the operation. And if Iran contest control of the Strait of Hormuz by the United States, will obliterate them.

[Jon Lovett]

I would not support the Republican Party. There's no chance I would support the Republican Party. How could I or any American voter support a political party that's not loyal

[Maggie Haberman]

to the United States, that puts the

[Jon Lovett]

interests of a foreign country above those

[Jon Favreau]

of its own citizens?

[Jon Lovett]

Like so, no, I'm out.

[Maggie Haberman]

And if I'm out, then I think

[Jon Lovett]

a lot of other people are out. Okay, so Tucker is out. Lindsey Graham's threatening to take over the Strait of Hormuz completely. And Jim Comer, the head of the Oversight Committee, he thinks that if the strait is open and we get inspectors in there, we have won the conflict. What do you guys think? Are the fractures here getting worse or getting better?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, the strait is open. That's a victory. Even though it was not something we had to worry about until they started the war. Inspectors back in as you had under the old agreement that they tore up. The thing that I saw that I think is the most alarming is the cope by The Iran hawks, who are also apparatchiks trying to get behind what Trump is doing. And you saw Hugh Hewitt and Mark Levin doing this kind of like 4D chess, basically saying the political calculus is that in order to prevent Republican losses and deal with the fact that the country has not been persuaded to be in favor of this war, you have to get into negotiations and punt, because then after the election, then you can get back to bombing. To bombing. Well, you know, Hugh Hewitt called it clarity and then also said, I assume if Marco Rubio is seeing what's happening here, that he would not go along with a deal that doesn't treat the Iranian regime like the threat that it is and he would resign.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, usually he's pretty vocal in matters of conscience like this, but.

[Jon Favreau]

But I do think it points to what some of these hawks are hoping, which is that they can prevent the worst political blowback from the war, get cost down, and then go back to being bellicose regime changers once the midterms are. Are behind us.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, like, ultimately, like, guys like Lindsey Graham is always going to. He's just going to get in line because that's what he does. And, you know, he's talked in articles before about all he cares about is relevance, and he wants to be up Trump's ass and get to play golf with him and be in the room. And he knows that Naga wants him just to be with Trump on everything. So I think, like, the. I think the elected Republicans will get in line. I think the hawks will get in line and, like, kind of keep their powder dry for another day. Ironically, Iran has more of a complicated system with factions that might oppose a deal, like the irgc. Like, they're going to be out there loudly advocating against a deal. There's a bunch of nationalists sort of like, forever getting whipped up. I think they can rightly say, like, why make a deal with the Americans? They just renege on them. They pull out. The next president will pull out anyway. Tucker, who knows what his incentives are these days? I mean, he's got an audience that he's building and maybe a presidential run. Can I just ask, why does Face the Nation book Lindsey Graham? He's like, one of their most booked guests. He disgraced himself when it comes to the Iraq war. He was catastrophically wrong about Iran there in that clip. He's threatening to have Trump do something militarily that we all just watch Trump fail to do, which is defeat the Iranian regime militarily and then take control of the Strait or Hormuz. If that was on the table, we would have done that. So why do we book this man on television just to spew this hawkish bullshit? At what point do you get discredited and no longer invited on to Face the Nation? Or at least be in the penalty box for maybe a couple weeks?

[Jon Lovett]

I imagine when they're doing their booking, they're just saying, okay, we need. We need the administration mouthpiece perspective.

[Tommy Vietor]

We need a guy in a tie on a suit.

[Jon Lovett]

Because if we can't get Trump or JD or something, we need someone who's going to spout that. Whatever. Spout that line, I guess.

[Jon Favreau]

How are the pro Trump hawks feeling? You know, go to Lindsey Graham, who's basically proposing that the US Take over the strait of her moves. I assume there'd be some sort of, like, maybe have Disney help and do some sort of fastpass situation. Gotta use the genie app to get through.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Sort of begs the question, why haven't we done that already?

[Tommy Vietor]

It was on the table, we would have done it.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he didn't.

[Tommy Vietor]

But now we're going to go back and take 20% of aggregate oil revenue from this. Like, what the.

[Jon Favreau]

If you remember, there was a time where we were begging Europe to help us do something we didn't need their help to do, which is retake the straight of her moose, which we never did.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's just like, it's so. It's so fundamentally unserious and he's such a discredited individual. But it speaks to how war is covered in Washington where, like, the hawkish view is the serious view. These are the very serious people who talk about serious things in the Oval Office. And if you're anti war or you say, like, we should be pro diplomacy, you are not booked on these shows or treated seriously. And it just drives me nuts.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, you know who's not buying all this shit? Voters. Yeah, cbs. The same CBS that had Lindsey Graham on has a new poll out on Sunday. Huge majority of people support ending the war. Roughly 80, 20, but by similar margins. They think we have not stopped Iran's nuclear program for good, created a better situation for Iran's people, or installed a regime that's friendlier to us. In other words, most voters are familiar with the reality of the situation. Just saying true things. American voters. Who would have guessed?

[Tommy Vietor]

Got it.

[Jon Lovett]

Big picture. 70% of people say the war was not worth the cost. Only 30% say it was. Only one poll, but lots of good data, good questions in there. What jumped out at you guys?

[Jon Favreau]

One thing was just think about what Tucker Carlson was saying there about being out and the other kind of people that would be out. You would think that the kind of America First MAGA crowd would be more skittish about continuing the conflict. But it found that among Republicans, 60, 40 want to end the conflict now rather than continue until Iran gives up more. And it's a small difference, but actually fewer MAGA reps.

[Jon Lovett]

But that, yeah, you, you, but you said America first, which is telling. That's not America. Well, MAGA is, MAGA is what whatever Trump wants, I'm good with.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that's what I mean. Right. That, that the people that you would think would be the America first sort of that were against these kind of interventions because they're behind Trump. It's their job to be supportive of Trump. There's no, they're not brooking as much dissent here. I mean, I would say even the fact that 60% of Republicans want to end the conflict now, even 56% of MAGA Republicans, like, does tell you how unpopular this is. But I think it was striking that you don't have a bigger break among people that would have considered themselves more aligned with Tucker.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. What do you think?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean you get 70% of the country saying this was not worth the cost.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean that is, you don't get 70 for much.

[Tommy Vietor]

You don't get 70 for much. I too love it. I was kind of like struck by the splits within MAGA, the 56% saying end it now. 44% continue to get more from Iran, keep fighting to get more from Iran. But then, you know, they did like kind of an intra MAGA self identified Maga poll. And 90% of like the MAGA people polled to the deal was better for Iran. 19% of all Republicans said the deal was better from Iran. So it's just, I don't know, speaks to the way the failure here has broken through to even the kind of cult members, the MAGA cult members. And I think it tells you something about wars and how they end up being damaging for presidents. It's like presidents are actually often not. You don't get hurt politically if you kind of bump along. But if you end a war and are perceived to have lost the war, I think voters will punish you. And it seems like we're seeing the beginnings of that for Trump.

[Jon Lovett]

One number that stuck out at me, it could be a problem for them in problem for the administration in the coming weeks and months. There's a plurality, 42% think gas prices will go down in the next few weeks. And there is an expectation, you can tell in these polls that they think it is over and now things are going to get better financially, economically. And that's. And maybe that happens eventually, but I think it's going to take a bit of time. Just because the price of oil is falling doesn't mean that the price of gas will as well. And, you know, you're seeing like, I think this poll has like his approval rating tick up a point from last time, which is, you know, margin of error. Meaningless. Meaningless. But overall, you've seen some, you know, last week you could say maybe the generic ballot got like a point closer to Republicans too. So there might be some expectation around the war ending that relief is coming that I don't know if Trump is actually going to be able to deliver on, which is certainly something to watch

[Tommy Vietor]

for, which is why I think he's giving like this 60 day immediate license to the Iranians to sell oil and gas because they're just trying to flood the zone.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And get prices down as fast as they, they can. I agree. It's an open question about how quickly gas prices come down and whether they come down to where they were and whether that's kind of how people are anchoring this in their mind.

[Jon Favreau]

But, yeah, but, you know, gas prices aren't just determined by the amount of oil that Iran lets to the straight. And by the way, it's not as if the strait is back up to where it was before. There's still much less traffic through there. But if you have Iran, I think immediately saying we are going to close the straight again to s. I think, purposely right. To whether whatever the, the, the inciting cause to signal that at any moment we can shut this thing down again, that our power and we plan to use it. Right. How is that going to give anybody confidence that prices are going to be reliable, that oil will be reliable, that you can count on prices coming down? I just. Trump threatening them, threatening to kill the negotiators. I mean, like, we're just, it's just

[Tommy Vietor]

millennial, you know, locker room talk.

[Jon Lovett]

That's what J.D. vance called it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Positive America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you own your own business or in a position to hire, you want to find people who are as excited about the work you do as you are. ZipRecruiter is a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested and qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. And now you can try it out for free at ziprecruiter.com Crooked ZipRecruiter Smart matching technology connects you with qualified candidates instantly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in the job. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. We use ZipRecruiter here.

[Jon Lovett]

At Crooked Media.

[Tommy Vietor]

We've hired a bunch of great people. It made the process way faster. You get great candidates almost instantly. It helps you sort through them quickly. You can find folks who are actually interested in the job and not just applying to a million jobs. So we highly recommend it. Use ZipRecruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast. 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com crooked that ziprecruiter.com crooked meet your match on ziprecruiter pod save

[Jon Favreau]

america is brought to you by hims. Ed is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point. And that's exactly why HIMS offers a straightforward way to handle it. HIMSS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines. Just complete a simple online intake and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment ships directly to your door in discreet packaging that includes sildenafil, also known as generic for Viagra, available through Kims at up to 95% less than the brand name version. And if that option isn't right for you, there are additional treatment options available so you can find what works best for your body. It's straightforward, transparent and designed to make getting care feel easy. To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, weight loss and more, visit hims.com crooked that's hims.com crooked for your free online visit hims.com/crooked prescription required. See website for details and important safety information. Sil Denafil is the generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatris Specialty, llc. HIMSS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Beatris.

[Jon Lovett]

All right, we briefly discussed this on Friday's pod, but Iran isn't the only war Trump's lost lately. He's also been defeated by the algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Turns out Trump's Mar a Lago pal who got the no bid contract for $14 million and counting to renovate the Reflecting Pool. A fellow Convicted criminal by the name of John Caffaro. Have you seen this guy's picture? Incredible.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I recommend everyone Google right now John Caffaro, find the photo of him in the 80s wearing the double breasted suit. I can't. Is it a comb over or a hairpiece?

[Jon Lovett]

Unclear.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know. It looks like he's trying to kill the Aristocats.

[Tommy Vietor]

He pleaded guilty to bribing James Trafikant.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he's. Oh, that's who it was. I saw the bribery.

[Tommy Vietor]

I didn't know hair on hair, violence.

[Jon Favreau]

Those guys both had amazing sets of hair.

[Jon Lovett]

Two convictions, campaign finance bribery. Yeah, this is the guy that got the no bid contract. So he didn't.

[Jon Favreau]

He looks like when he gets mad the, his, his shirt rolls up like what's that thing called when you have a tuxedo thing? A tuxedo front.

[Tommy Vietor]

It looks like it's. And rolls up.

[Jon Lovett]

That probably happened when he found out about the algae. So John Cafaro didn't do the top notch work he's known for. And now they have to drain the pool and start from scratch. The President, per usual, is blaming everyone else, including reporter John Carl of ABC News, quote, dirty cop James Comey and other alleged vandals, five of whom have apparently been arrested, including a former Olympic canoer who says he was just reaching into the pool to feel the detached liner.

[Jon Favreau]

Seems like he was up the reflecting

[Tommy Vietor]

pool without a paddle.

[Jon Favreau]

This guy

[Jon Lovett]

Trump threatened the rest of us with a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction or even the attempted destruction of such things, which he said, quote, will be fully enforced. Naturally, Trump got a lot of appropriately skeptical questions on this in the Oval on Monday. Here's what he said.

[Jon Favreau]

Are the contractors who did the initial work for the reflecting pool, are they to blame for the current condition or is it vandalism?

[Donald Trump]

Vandals, you know, we have 100 and we have a, I think 290, 300 foot slit right through it. Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind.

[Jon Favreau]

National Guard and police have been all over the mall. How would these vandals have gotten so close to do something like that?

[Donald Trump]

Do you have any proof of this? I mean we didn't have, we didn't have a lot of them then who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it?

[Jon Favreau]

Proof of that?

[Donald Trump]

Yeah. Well, let's put it this way. When you have a 350, I think it's 350, not 250. A 350 foot slit from one end to the other. You think that's proof? You think that's.

[Maggie Haberman]

Boys have been down there today looking for that slit that you mentioned.

[Donald Trump]

All you'd have to do is see the Parks Department. They'll show it to you.

[Maggie Haberman]

Curious about this situation is we stood here with you in April when you first revealed the plans.

[Donald Trump]

I said, what?

[Maggie Haberman]

In April you showed us pictures of what you were going to do.

[Jonathan Swan]

Yeah.

[Maggie Haberman]

You said you had a guy who

[Donald Trump]

was going to do it in a

[Maggie Haberman]

week for about a million dollars. Well, it's been two months. Sixteen and a half million.

[Donald Trump]

Okay, ready? Barack Hussein Obama. Have you ever heard of him?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

He spent two years and over $100 million. I spent two months, maybe less. And I have a better product now. I can't help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up. And we also have pictures of it. You know, we have.

[Maggie Haberman]

Can you release the photos?

[Donald Trump]

Yeah. At the right time. Say it. You'll see it in court.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, he's so pissed. Find the guy who did the slit.

[Jonathan Swan]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is that with a box cutter? Like it's a reflecting pool. Muhammad Atta just also terrorizing.

[Jon Lovett]

I wonder where someone could have possibly gotten the idea to use a knife to cut the reflecting pool. Might have a clue here. Let's watch.

[Donald Trump]

This will last for at least 50 years and you'll never have a leak. It's very strong. You couldn't if you had a knife. I don't want to give anybody ideas. If you had a knife, you. You can't even cut it. So strong, so powerful.

[Jon Lovett]

Powerful rubber, powerful rubber, powerful rubber, not so powerful. So I feel like this went from mostly funny to fairly alarming. Now that they're trying to arrest random scapegoats just because Trump can't admit he fucked up. What do you guys make of this whole situation?

[Jon Favreau]

So you make a big deal about how you're going to finally fix the pool because Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden couldn't do it. You're the only one who has the ability to do it. You do a no bid contract for a guy who is the crony picture in the crony entry of the dictionary. You declare victory. Then all of a sudden the algae's coming back. And so you have your people lie about that. They post pictures saying that it's better, that this is not real. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfect. The lie draws more attention to the story, so reporters start covering it. Okay. Because you hyped it up so much and are lying the Media's making more of an issue of it, so you start blaming saboteurs even though they don't seem to exist. That generates only more coverage. Now you're arresting random for. For checking out the mess that you've made. Now you've turned what was a silly and ultimately small story about a pool renovation into gross incompetence, corruption, and rising fascism. So there's even more coverage. And then you Claire that. Then you declare that the media is obsessed. Why is the media so obsessed with what's happening to the reflecting pool? Well, maybe you said you went and held up a picture about who you were, the one that was gonna fix it, and then turned it into just a. An example of every aspect, like of the, The.

[Tommy Vietor]

The.

[Jon Favreau]

The lying, the. The lawlessness, the corrupt deals that you're making, the incompetence. You just turned it into a perfect metaphor for everything you've done wrong in this administration. So, yeah, people are going to cover it.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm still in the mostly funny camping Jim Comey at his house, like, cultivating sea monkeys in the backyard, releasing them into the reflecting pool. That's funny. Like John Caffaro having a company called Greenwater Services.

[Jon Favreau]

That's funny.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's some funny. Obviously it's bad that they're arresting this random Olympian man who was just biking around and accusing of sabotaging. Look, you watch Jeanine Pirro ranting away on Fox about this stuff, and we're all used to seeing her, you know, like six Chardonnays deep, just kind of like doing a primetime hit. And then you remember, oh, wait, this woman can issue subpoenas. That's actually a little scary. It's bad. But I think all of this will probably go away because obviously this is just algae grows because it's sunny and it's hot in the pool and there's water in it. What are you talking about?

[Jon Lovett]

And it sounds like they just did everything wrong.

[Tommy Vietor]

They did a bad job is the

[Jon Lovett]

other thing, and they spent a lot of money on it. Also, none of these people are going to jail because all of this is gonna get laughed outta court. TMZ, D.C. was down there all day today and they have all this footage of people being arrested, detained. And these people are like. You can see on camera, they're just like, look, some of them are just looking down to take pictures. And like, seven, like, there's like, park police, there's D.C. they're all. It's complete madness. It is just. It is a lie on the level of, like, now we're back to like Sean Spicer and the inaugural crowd. It's like, you know who cut the 300 foot slit in the reflecting pool? Fucking no one. Because that it just the sun. It did not happen because you look at the reflective pool, there is no slit visible. Reporters have looked even since he just said that. So it didn't happen. It's impossible to do that. 300ft, that's the size of a football field. Someone's going to take a box cutter and cut us with the size of the football field. And no one's going to pay attention to that. No one's going to see that. They're not going to be seen. Also, even if they did, wouldn't cause the algae, wouldn't cause the problem. Also, you spend $14 million on a Renault that can be undid with a box cutter. Also, what kind of renovation is that?

[Jon Favreau]

It's also not a. There's chunks of it floating up all over the fucking thing. The algae has been growing since last week. It's what everybody said would happen. I just like, obviously this is very silly, but now we're at the point where they got federal cops patrolling the National Mall to arrest people who are going to point things out that embarrass the dear leader. It is a. It is, as you know, the ballroom and now this. These are perfect metaphors for what this administration has done. I think it's the kind of thing that'll stay stick with people in part because it's all so stupid that this is what's taking up the President's time.

[Jon Lovett]

And even if no one was paying attention to it, probably still take up his time.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, he's the reason we're all paying attention focused on this.

[Tommy Vietor]

He drove his ass down to the reflecting pool. He like this all started with him doing a drive by at the thing.

[Jon Favreau]

They're going to build a wall around this thing too. They're going to have to cover it.

[Donald Trump]

They are.

[Jon Favreau]

They're going to cover it up so people can't take photos of it. The same way they built that giant wall around the renovation of the ballroom. Cause he didn't want embarrassing photos of the ballroom like this. It's not gonna go away. The reflecting pool is just there. It's a big part of the National Mall. It's eight acres big. It's massive. And it is not gonna be fixed for a long time. They don't know how to fix it.

[Jon Lovett]

And look, we know how serious this administration is about punishing people who destroy federal property. It's just something that they have cared about for a long time.

[Jon Favreau]

Take it very seriously.

[Jon Lovett]

Take it very, very seriously.

[Jon Favreau]

Very, very seriously.

[Jon Lovett]

Every single person who did that on January 6, completely free, pardoned, commuted. And now they're just arresting random people. Which is. Which is fascinating. He's also now saying that it's. People are dumping fertilizer in there. They're jumping. Vandals are dumping fertilizer.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's coming.

[Jon Lovett]

So they got that through the straight and now here we go. Now they got. Now they're dumping it in there. Yeah. The Comey thing for those who didn't pay attention is someone. There was some vandalism where someone on the lawn did like an 8647 unrelated to the.

[Jon Favreau]

Unrelated to the reflecting pool, unrelated to the car. 8,646, 747 in grass.

[Jon Lovett]

So Trump truth about it. And so Trump thinks that because Comey did that with the shells or took a picture of the shells and posted it, which he's now also being prosecuted for, that someone was inspired by that to box cut his reflecting pool. It's one of the stupidest fucking things we've covered. A lot of stupid stories.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

This is going to be a. This is a chapter you're going to want to come back to.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

When the Trump stories. When we'll probably forget about it by the end of the Trump administration. But the reflecting pool, this is one of the dumber ones.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know that. Look. I think it's going to be in the ballroom category because this is just going to be something for months and months. Now they got to drain it again. It's not like their plan worked the first time. They got a better plan this time because apparently the shit they put down on the floor of that reflecting pool didn't work. It's so I don't. Is it the same jag off that's going to be doing the next round is. So are they getting a new. New no bid.

[Jon Lovett]

Chunks of blue rubber floating in their

[Tommy Vietor]

floating pool, Just nuking it with chemicals.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, it's so funny because when, when the whole thing started, they were like, it seems kind of strange he's hiring just like a pool guy. It's like, nah, he's got it.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, it's also funny that last time we recorded, I think the Department of Interior was just posting fake pictures of the pool as blue and saying everything's great. So they thought that was their plan for other. They were just going to AI their way through it. And I guess now they're like, all right, the AI stuff didn't work, so now we're gonna have to blame some fake vandals. And now we're gonna do.

[Jon Favreau]

We're not that far away from, like, the government posting. Great news, everybody. Gas is down to $11 a gallon. You're all getting chocolate this week. Your chocolate rations are up.

[Jon Lovett]

So one renovation that did go well for Trump this week, the brand new Qatari Force One that he'll be flying around in and ultimately taking with him when he leaves the White House as a parting gift. The government won't say how much we all paid to retrofit the new plane, though. The Secretary of the Air Force said in a hearing last year that it would probably be less than $400 million. Privately, the air Force said it would use some of its nuclear modernization funds to pay for upgrading the plane. Because why do we need those? And sure enough, a month later, there was an unexplained 900 million dol dollar transfer from a nuclear account to an unnamed classified project. They are calling the plane Project Classified, which is why they're not revealing any of the costs. Not that Trump wants you to think this thing was done cheaply. He's actually proud of how much money it cost. Here he is now.

[Donald Trump]

This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody's ever seen before. Probably even almost outside of an airplane. It's. Nobody's ever seen anything like this.

[Jon Lovett]

Nobody's ever seen anything like.

[Jon Favreau]

Nobody. Not even. It's nicer than any room outside of an airplane. That's all but a very small set of rooms.

[Jon Lovett]

There's also. There's still another two Air Force Ones on order. This is just what the Pentagon is calling a, a bridge aircraft.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, he's going to steal it after.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why this one, this is the bridge one. Because this is the one he takes to go. This.

[Jon Lovett]

The.

[Jon Favreau]

This is the to go one you fly.

[Tommy Vietor]

This is the.

[Jon Favreau]

This is the one he's going to take with him.

[Jon Lovett]

How well do you think this one pulls?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, I talked to Maggie and Jonathan Swan about this. In their book, they report that Qatar initially wanted to be paid 150 to 200 million dollars for the plane, and then suddenly the plane was a gift. And they report that the idea for making a gift was, quote, generated at the POTUS level. So it's just part of this, like, ongoing corruption story. I think this has really become a monument to the corruption, and it really broke through in the moment. And I do Think this is a big problem for him politically, to the extent that he cares. I mean, it is a problem for him politically. But one of his superpowers, as we all remember, is the years of branding on the Apprentice and with the art of the deal, was that he was a brilliant businessman and he was rich and he didn't need this job and he had all the money he wanted. This was really a sacrifice was coming into government. And this, the plane, the narrative around the corruption has really pierced that narrative. And you would think he would care. But then we watch him do, like, a rollout of his corrupt gift.

[Jon Lovett]

Very proud.

[Tommy Vietor]

Where he does remarks in, like, a staged photo op.

[Jon Lovett]

So you think the Qataris are feeling like they got their money's worth?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, this worked out great for them.

[Jon Lovett]

You think they give this free airplane and look what they got. They got Iran blowing their shit up and their economy in trouble because of the war in the Middle east that Trump caused. I don't know if they feel like

[Tommy Vietor]

they got a good deal out of

[Jon Favreau]

it sitting there next to JD Doing track changes to the fucking document. No, no, no, we can't do that. They're not doing that. They're not. The. It is like, you know, it's interesting, the difference between term one and term two with Trump, right? Because term one, like, he felt like he got all the kind. He gets all the prestige and benefits of being president. He loves having that plane. He would do speeches in front of the plane. He loves doing that. And it was always such a bummer to have Trump, you know, garner the prestige of the White House, Right? Like, he had that power behind him, which he. Which he did. And that included Air Force One. It was like, oh, so just so sad to see Donald Trump representing our country on that plane. And now we're gonna have this new version of the plane that looks different. And it's actually his plane that he's taking with him. And so now whenever he gets off the plane, we're gonna have this little symbol of corruption behind him in every shot, and he's gonna still use it like he did the old one, but there behind him is the proof that he is the most corrupt leader on Earth. Maybe the most corrupt, certainly the most corrupt president in American history right there on the tarmac.

[Jon Lovett]

What do you guys think of the red, white and blue? I kind of like it. I like it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it looks pretty cool. I mean, the. The old version. I like the old version, too. Like the robin's egg blue on the bottom. And, like, you know, that was also a little piece of history. I mean, that was redesigned with. By JFK in 1962. He also spent a bunch of time, like, personally with a designer named Raymond Lowy, like, redesigning the look of Air Force One. And Trump just sort of trashed that as he's trashing the Kennedy center and renaming that and. And all these other monuments and institutions. So it's a piece of a puzzle. But, yeah, I mean, aesthetically, it's like it's a sick plane.

[Jon Favreau]

As far as Donald Trump being in charge of any kind of design, I feel like he did. He didn't it up too badly. It looks good.

[Jon Lovett]

It's not like the oval.

[Donald Trump]

No.

[Jon Favreau]

I thought it could have more. We'll see what the inside looks like yet. We haven't seen the inside yet.

[Jon Lovett]

I saw a few pictures.

[Jon Favreau]

I haven't. Oh, I hadn't seen the. I just saw the outside.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think it's just bigger and better.

[Jon Lovett]

Bigger.

[Jonathan Swan]

But.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, But I will say the one thing that is incredibly ugly is they have. Instead of the kind of classic American flag on the back, on the tail, they have a waving American flag.

[Jon Lovett]

That's no good.

[Jon Favreau]

Cheap paint. Like, it looks tacky and it doesn't fit with the design.

[Jon Lovett]

It does fit with his design.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Which is.

[Jon Lovett]

That makes me. Okay, good. At least there's some Trump on there.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So instead of having just sort of a classic straight American flag, as you would on. That's not waving because it's not a flag. It's a painting of a flag. So you don't need to paint it waving. They painted the cheesy waving thing on it, which looks like ass.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm surprised he didn't put his name on it.

[Tommy Vietor]

I am too busy again. In the Maggie and Jonathan's book, they talk like. There's the scene where Caroline Levitt walks into the Oval Office and Trump is personally super gluing some little gaudy gold thing onto the mantelpiece. Like, he's so personally engaged and invested

[Jon Lovett]

in this stuff because he's a bored old man.

[Tommy Vietor]

He literally is just.

[Jon Lovett]

Who has no interest in governing.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

It's just like, why couldn't he go

[Jon Lovett]

into his interest in using the governing to make money for himself and his friends and to settle old scores.

[Tommy Vietor]

And interior design.

[Jon Lovett]

And interior design. That's his hobby in golf.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. At least like Howard Hughes had the decency to lock the door and fill the jars with piss. Like, this guy's just got. It's like a. Just a different kind of. Of. Of kind of old Craziness of, like, putting your name on everything, putting gold on everything.

[Tommy Vietor]

The question of, what does Qatar think? They got a good deal here is an interesting one, because, remember, in the first term, Qatar was briefly, like, blockaded by all the other countries in the Gulf.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then ultimately, that deal was mediated by Jared Kushner. And interestingly, that mediation happened right around the time when the Qataris, I think, finally came in and bailed Jared out for, like, the 666 Park Ave, or whatever real estate deal he had done that went terribly south because they did the biggest real estate investment in Manhattan history right before the financial crisis. So it's interesting, though, because Qatar is tiny and super isolated and pisses all its friends off through Al Jazeera and its foreign policy choices. And I think they wanted to get in well with Trump. But then, of course, the Iran stuff kind of complicates the ledger here on whether this worked out well.

[Jon Lovett]

And look, now they gave a plane to one president. Now the expectation is gonna be that every American president gets a plane from Victorious.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's a plane. Can you do us a favor and stop causing foreign policy disasters that lead to our hotels exploding? That would be great if you could just. We gave you the fucking plane. We got a Rosewood on fire here. We're trying to convince people that it's awesome and no big deal that we're

[Jon Lovett]

this close to these to Iran influencers aren't doing it. We need.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Jesus Christ. You know? Yeah. The gay people can't hold hands, but we got a Four Seasons going. Can you help us out trying to

[Jon Lovett]

build an even taller building?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

PO America is brought to you by. Helix Sleep is, I think, maybe the most important thing in my life. When I get a good night's sleep, I feel great. I'm ready to tackle my day. I'm better at work, better at being a parent, better at working out, better at eating everything. And when you get a bad night's sleep, it sucks and you feel and your body hurts, and you're just not as ready to live. How about that? You're not as ready to be alive. Love it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, you're not.

[Tommy Vietor]

One important part of getting a great night's sleep is having a great mattress. And Helix will deliver one right to your door. With free shipping in the U.S. how do you know which mattress is right for you? Take the Helix Sleep quiz, and you get matched with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs. They have over 20 mattress models, so you can find the perfect model for you the Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure you're completely satisfied with your new mattress so you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. Plus, helix offers a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. We have a Helix mattress at our house. It is unbelievably comfortable. We actually have it in the guest room. So whenever folks come and stay with us, they'll always say what a comfortable bed, what a great night's sleep. And we say, you know what, Helix, I can send one to you tomorrow. Go to helixsleep.com crooked for 20% off site wide, 25% off luxed mattresses and 30% off elite mattresses. That's helixsleep.com crooked for twenty percent off site wide, 25% off Luxed mattresses and 30% off Elite mattresses. Helixsleep.com crooked pod save america is brought

[Jon Favreau]

to you by Smalls. Smalls makes fresh human grade food for cats. It's made from the same stuff you or I would eat, but formulated specifically to help cats thrive. Cats are obligate carnivores. You need lots of. I don't know what an obligate carnivore is. Just a carnivore.

[Jon Lovett]

What a.

[Tommy Vietor]

What a helpful description.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I guess.

[Jon Lovett]

We're, we're, we're, we're.

[Jon Favreau]

What is, what is it called? A multiver. What is, what is human multiverse. We're not. We can omnivore. That's our dilemma. That's wrong. Omnivore. I love being an omnivore.

[Tommy Vietor]

The multiverse dilemma.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't want to be an obligate carnivore. Like one of those meat People from YouTube,

[Tommy Vietor]

the Liver King over here.

[Jon Favreau]

Those meat people that just. Their faces are bright red. You can see every vein in their body. Like, I've never felt better.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't know that.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what feeling better is? Back to your cat. And the point is your cat gotta keep that cat healthy. And that means meat. Most cat food out there uses meat byproducts and cuts their food with cheap grain filler artificial ingredients. Basically, it's full of stuff that isn't great for your cat just so the big pet food companies can save a couple of dollars. Smalls is different. Their fresh recipes are over 80% animal protein and they never use fillers or artificial ingredients. Their food is so healthy that 88% of cat parents say that after feeding Smalls, they notice that their cat has better digestion, softer and shinier coats I spoom and have more energy to play because it's actually good for cats. If you want to invest in your cat's health, Smalls is giving you 60% off your cat's first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you go to smalls.com crooked. Your life or the cat's life?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, honestly. Good question.

[Jon Favreau]

Smalls.com Crooked that's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com crooked

[Jon Lovett]

all right, we didn't get a chance last week to talk about the latest with the Bill Pulte saga. Well, surprise. This corrupt moron has now taken over for Tulsi Gabbard as the acting Director of National Intelligence, a development that both Democrats and Republicans had tried to avoid. As Senator Mark Warner explained to Tommy, the original plan was to immediately confirm Trump's permanent pick for the job, federal prosecutor and former SEC chair Jay Clayton. But Trump got wind of that and announced that he was pulling back Clayton's nomination until Clayton's replacement at SDNY is approved by the Senate, all but ensuring that Pulte gets at least some time on the job. Why do you guys think that Trump didn't want his own pick, Jay Clayton confirmed as soon as possible he did pick him.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, it's hard to be inside of his mind. Like there's two things going on. One is the machinations around FISA and getting the SDNY confirmed, who is a former federal prosecutor but also his personal lawyer at, I think Solomon Sullivan and Cromwell, I think is where he is. So he sort of wants to get one of his guys in at sdny. Fine. I think also Bill Pulte can do a lot of damage being DNI for a couple weeks, get some good political prosecutions going if he wants. That's what he did when he was going through the mortgage documents and trying to find ways to go after Comey and Tish James and all the rest. So, yeah, let's get it. He gets a, you know, get your fingers into the all the intelligence you want for a couple weeks. That's valuable.

[Jon Lovett]

Apparently someone a source familiar told CNN just before we recorded that Pulte is going to start carrying out firings, that the deep state firings have begun. And that part of it is to, I guess, get him in there so he can fire a bunch of fucking Deep State people.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. So Mark Warner, when I talked to him, was so concerned about Bill Pulte's access to information or being in the job even for a minute that he was basically ready to unanimously confront, just like confirm Clayton by uc, just like push him forward and get it done. I think that Trump's weird gambit here is like he's mad that Republicans told him no about anything, so he's going to just freak out and decide to change the kind of up the ante. I think he genuinely seems to think that he can use the bipartisan desire to pass a very important intelligence collection program as a way to shoehorn in the SAVE act and, and get that done, which is their crazy bill to like tackle the made up problem of non citizen voter registration. Just doesn't happen. But then with respect to Pulte, like, I think the question is, does he want him to root around intelligence information, find stuff about his enemies and then refer to the doj, or do something with it? Or does Trump just want a purge of DNI employees? I don't really get why he couldn't have had Tulsi Gabbard do a poll purge of DNI employees.

[Jon Lovett]

Also seems like Jay Clayton would be happy to do that too. Jay Clayton is not some like, like, yeah, he's better than Bill Pulte, but been very loyal to Trump.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's very maga. I do think he's a serious person who's, you know, serious prosecutor was a, you know, was the sec.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, so he's like, had big jobs and hopefully like brings some relevant experience to this job. Pulte's obviously a clown.

[Jon Lovett]

Speaking of Tulsi Gabbard, did either of you guys read the insane Washington Post story about the, the, the cult she grew up in that maybe still controls her?

[Jon Favreau]

Wild.

[Maggie Haberman]

Wild.

[Jon Lovett]

It's a real story.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it's, it's one of those things where because it's coming out after she's gone, it's like, oh, well, she shouldn't be dni. Well, and she's not. But man, you kind of. The thing that I took away from it is one of the things about Tulsi Gabbard, I think that is she's just a puzzle. She's just kind of confusing. Figure her.

[Jon Lovett]

There's like a few more pieces went into place after that story.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, but like, it was always like, wait, she, you know, she introduces Bernie at the convention. She used to be seen as on the left. She was anti war, had this strange refusal to criticize Assad, then goes in this Trump direction. It all just confusing her. She was ideologically confusing. And then you dig into it and there's this collection of memos first of all, you've never seen anything like it. Just random. There's a collection of memos that seem to be from this figure, this sort of religious leader inside of her life. These kind of like, sort of harsh, like insulting directives coming all the time in, in her direction. What she should say on television, what bills she should introduce, how should she talk about certain issues. They deny that it's him. There's a lot of denials in the thing. But there's also references inside of these mem to his own life that don't refer to anybody else.

[Jon Lovett]

Also she said there's like they matched what she actually said on TV and the legislation she introduced and they match exactly to all these memos where this person was telling her to do these things.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. And then on top of that you have this collection of people. It's all this sort of strange bit of, it's very cultish. It's also very like ham fisted and silly and amateur. They have a collection of people running dummy accounts to comment under articles on Hawaii newspapers about, about Tulsi and there's. And like on Twitter and all the rest. It's just this little kind of ramshackle small operation. And then at one point, which I thought spoke to the kind of, I don't know what, what kind of like master plan they thought they were implementing that, that once Trump started running this one of the notes says something along the lines of it's a shame you're not running because he's doing what you were going to do. It's like, you be president. Are you. What are we talking about?

[Tommy Vietor]

She, I mean she ran and she thinks, apparently thinks the DNI is a platform to run again. Again and is wants to try and it's apparently thing that she and Trump had gotten in fights about because you know, remember when she put out that weird video after getting back to Hiroshima talking about nuclear annihilation. It was like clear the context was in the midst of both the Putin Russia talks, but also the Iran negotiations. And Trump I guess yelled at her about it. I mean, my reaction to the story was similar to yours. Love it. Which is like she's such a bizarre character and like maybe this helps us understand this weirdo. That she was just taking literal direction from a cult leader. I hope it will get her out of politics forever and that she will not run for president again. Apparently, like I think, was it Roger Stone or Steve Bannon? One of those guys thinks that she could actually run. But it's fucking, it's crazy. This person was the Director of National Intelligence, like, just sort of speaks to the utter failure of vetting for any of these individuals.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Or the success of the vetting, because it seems like this is who he wants to stack his administration with. You got RFK junior conspiracy theorists kooks. I mean, John Swain, who wrote the story, he said with his. With his Washington Post colleague Aaron Schaeffer. I compared Gabbard's remarks in 32 TV interviews between 2014 and 2016 with the talking points memos intended for them. This is what the cult leader wrote, although he didn't sign his name to them. But they're all from the same person. On 24 occasions out of the 32, Gabbard used language in the memos almost verbatim. So this is like her entire congressional career. She's just going on TV and saying the word. I mean, this is like, like this is like a right wing conspiracy, but it's real. They think of like, you know, like Democrats being controlled by global forces. But like, here's Tulsi Gabbard just going on TV introducing legislation that this random cult leader told her to.

[Jon Favreau]

What's funny too is they're trying to now say they're like, oh, this is just anti Hindu bigotry. When I say there's nothing. There's nothing Hindu going on in any of these fucking memos. And then there's the one line that I thought was great, is there was some line that was. This was the one said, no matter how much you've basically the. To paraphrase it, don't worry, no matter how much you fuck up tomorrow, I love you and Krishna loves you, which I did really appreciate. There was one memo that I thought was very funny because it was. It was very. It was about some statement she gave, I believe, after the State of the Union. And it was actually had some like, very good advice, which was something along the lines of like, hey, you just gave a generic, boring statement. You sound like a politician. If you have nothing to say, don't say anything. But you only have something to say if you're prepared.

[Jon Lovett]

Let this. Let's get this guy in a Democratic campaign.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, can't do worse than a lot of the guy. A lot of consultants we've got going.

[Tommy Vietor]

The range of the advice was funny. It was like, introduce this exact policy. And then some emails would be like, stop doing the weird eye thing.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes, I'm still doing it. You know what? I read that and I was like, oh, she does do a weird, weird eye Thing. Yeah, he was onto something there.

[Jon Favreau]

It reminded me there was a, I remember there was somebody when I was working for Hillary, at some point she went to the floor to speak on the Senate floor by some issue and one of the consultants accidentally respond replied, all meaning this, send the note to just one person. And the email just said something like, like, how could you let Hillary go out there looking like, like that?

[Jon Lovett]

She was on, she was on the reply.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, Hillary. The whole staff was, we all got. I wasn't, that was early in my days. I was not on a small email chain about Hillary.

[Jon Lovett]

I didn't know she was included in the office.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, no, I don't think she was. I don't think she was.

[Jon Lovett]

One person would have been vaporized.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, just sort of, just, just sort of blipped out of existence.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, maybe we all need like a cult leader in our lives given unvarnished feedback.

[Jon Lovett]

You know, that is true.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why we. Message box.

[Jon Lovett]

Wait till the memos come out. Yeah, they are. You can subscribe. Speaking of corrupt goons, we should talk about the wild and infuriating New York Times story that sheds new light on why Trump may have freed a convicted fraudster named David Gentile less than two weeks into a seven year sentence after Gentile stole over a billion dollars from what the Times calls thousands of mostly mom and pop investors. The commutation also meant Gentile no longer had to pay as much as 15 and a half half million dollars in restitution. Well, apparently, according to Ken Vogel at the Times, a couple of Trump's political appointees killed an early stage investigation by the office that prosecuted Gentile into how the clemency came about, including, quote, jailhouse communications where he discussed making over $2 million worth of payments to secure his freedom. The Times reported that one of the people who communicated with Gentile in prison and, quote, came under scrutiny by investigators was Reverend Frank Mann, a retired Catholic priest from Queens who's friends with Trump and spoke at his inauguration last year. Wild. What do you think? Like, is this the kind of thing Democrats should investigate if they take Congress? Or does this fall into the category of things we can't really do much about because the pardon power is absolute.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, we've got it. This is some of the most brazen corruption of the administration. And by the way, like, again, a lot of, of there's going to be a lot of people that say we shouldn't be looking backwards, but one of the reasons we're going to have to look backwards is that we understand what we need to do to fix it. And I like pardon reform, some kind of constitutional amendment is going to be on the table for how to protect our democracy. So I think we absolutely should be investigating this. One other reason to do it is there is daylight here between Trump and some of the people around Trump. Like, if you notice, the Caroline Levitt statement in that article says something like the idea that people would be trying to profit off of clemency is like repugnant or something to that effect and

[Jon Lovett]

at least cut Trump in.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, let the man get his beak wet. All right. He's got a lot, he's got a lot of renovation, he's got to do a lot of interior decorating. He's got a lot of expenses, a lot of renovation projects. But so there's also apparently in this story, according to this story, after the reports that this retired priest had taken cash, Trump called to find out if it was true because clearly Trump, on his word, had commuted this guy's sentence. And there's one point in the story where, where it seems as though this former priest accidentally butt dialed the reporter and left a message while he was talking about meeting with Trump and having lunch with him. So I do think we should be investigating this. I do think there's just an incredible amount of corruption going on around Trump around related to these pardons and commutations.

[Jon Lovett]

Wouldn't you love to hear the conversation between Trump and the priest when he asked him if it was him, if he took any money?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, Trump is immune from prosecution around pardons, but the people selling pardons are not. So we should absolutely investigate the hell out of it and see if we can bring some of them to justice. And also, I think stories like this where you've got this corrupt guy who, what defrauded $1.6 billion worth of money from mom and pop investors is how it's described. Like this directly connects the corruption to how it's hurting you. This is like kind of the exact sweet spot of the messaging.

[Jon Lovett]

And again, my thoughts when I read this, my first thought was like, oh, this is going to end up in a John Os.

[Tommy Vietor]

Absolutely.

[Jon Lovett]

Probably was already there, like a video. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then, you know, hear about this, you hear about this one, you read about this and then, you know, again to talk to Maggie and Jonathan about this, about all the examples of corruption. And Jonathan Swan was like, look, they're very serious journalists, right? Like I'm trying to around and they're just being, you know, telling me just the facts. Of the reporting. And Swan, like, looks into the camera and he's like, I think we know about 1% of the corruption stories. Oh, that's actually happening here. So just the avenues for investigative reporting, lawsuits, congressional oversight, like, there's a million stories like this that we do not know that we are going to have to try to find out. And that's the only way, I think, that the Naga cult will ever realize that this man was taking advantage of them and harming them.

[Jon Lovett]

By the way, it doesn't take a leap of faith to believe these stories. Like, oh, you think that a bunch of criminals, people who were convicted of crimes, including the president and the. In this guy, that he's. Who sentencing commuted. You don't think that he was selling, he was in jail and thinking to himself, how do I get out? Well, I gotta have Donald Trump do it. Who can get to Donald Trump? Well, someone that maybe I can pay. Maybe this friend who's a Catholic priest, whatever. Like, and the retired Catholic priest who just happens to be Donald Trump's buddy. Of course this happened. Like, what are you talking about?

[Jon Favreau]

By the way? The story inside of this? The retired priest cleaned up the grave site of Trump's parents, then sent the picture. And that's what gets him invited. The whole thing reeks. The whole thing just, it's this, like, what are we talking about?

[Jon Lovett]

It is the culture that Donald Trump created when he got to the White House and basically was like, oh, I'm gonna just pardon anyone who I wanna pardon. And doesn't matter what kind of crime you committed January 6th, rioters, people who've defrauded people, whatever it be. Like, if you concurry favor with me and you know me and you're connected to me, you get a pardon. So of course an entire industry is gonna spring up of people who sell access to Donald Trump, Trump for pardons.

[Jon Favreau]

Because why would. That's, why wouldn't you. If you're, of course, you're in jail, you know, you've been in jail for 10 years and then all of a sudden this glimmer of hope opens that if you get this money to some schmuck around Trump, some lobbyist or consultant around Trump, that, that, that you could potentially get out.

[Jon Lovett]

He'll, you'll walk away now being like, he wants a pardon.

[Tommy Vietor]

I literally was just gonna say, Sam Banker free is like openly lobbying Trump for a pardon.

[Jon Lovett]

Tomorrow he's gonna be like, I saw the guy who used the box cutter on the pool.

[Tommy Vietor]

I will bribe you, sir. But also, when The President United States takes a plane from the Qatari government or sells half of another signal crypto company and a secret deal to an Emirati backed investment firm. Everyone around him sees that. And that approach to governing filters through everyone else. And they're all thinking, how do I get mine?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I also will say too that I think there's sort of this sort of like fatigue and you're like, wow, any one of these scandals would have defined a previous administration. But like Trump, we sort of get glamoured by the ways in which there's always a new scandal and a new controversy. But this is Republicans in Congress, because if the reason it got to this point, the reason we have this level of corruption is because there have been multiple scandals which if they had marched to the podium and say this stops today, it could have stopped and they chose not to. They are responsible for this. They are the ones that are enabling this every, every day.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. The corrective for this in the Constitution is of course impeachment. And you know, there's obviously going to be a question if Democrats take Congress back to impeach Trump because it's obviously not going to go anywhere. There is part of me that thinks like, you just do it as a matter of fact, like, hey, look at all this corruption. If Republicans actually voted to convict. Part of what we want to do is get some of this money back for the American people that he stole from the American treasury and from the American people. We don't expect Republicans to actually vote for this, but we want to go on record and realize that like this is the President committed a bunch of crimes, stole a bunch of money from people like, you don't have to make a big deal out of it. I don't know, I'm still thinking about is hard to go down that path because it takes up a lot of oxygen. But again, when a president does this kind of thing, when he abuses the pardon power, when he is this corrupt, when he's stealing from the American people, the remedy in the Constitution is to impeach the guy. And if you don't do that, then, you know.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And by the way, both impeachments were vehicles to educate the country. We learned a lot in those.

[Jon Lovett]

Boy, did it work.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, the hearing, you know, and then even the January 6th hearings that came later I think were really important. No, they did not work. Cause here we are. But I do think, like at a certain point, yes, there will be a strategic argument against it. I get that. But like, man, have we done a lot of overthinking about strategy to end up in this place too.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. All right, now you guys get to hear, when we come back, more about all of Trump's machinations in the second term when Tommy talks to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan right after this. Pod. Save America is brought to you by CookUnity. I love CookUnity and I just had a meal last night. What did I have last night? I had the Thai beef curry. It was with rice. And who knows what I'm going to have tonight. Maybe like a good chicken dish they gave me. Anyway, I've used CookUnity for years, long before they were ever a sponsor. It's great. It's the first chef led meal delivery service that makes your meals in small batches inside local micro kitchens across the US not factories. So every dish arrives with the kind of freshness you'd get at the restaurant itself. Meals from Michelin starred chefs, James Beard winners and Food Network stars. Go to cookunity.com crooked or use code CROOKED before checkout for 50% off your first week. Every CookUnity meal is handcrafted by chefs in local micro kitchens, not mass produced in large facilities. Fresh, never frozen, and can be refrigerated for up to 7 days. CookUnity uses real culinary talent cooking in real kitchens, not a brand slapping a chef's name on a factory product. CookUnity works with some of the best chefs in the country to bring creative, delicious meals to your door. There are hundreds of dishes to choose from and the menu is updated constantly. Taste what happens when real award winning chefs make fresh, small batch meals just for you. Go to cookunity.com cricket or enter code CROOKED before checkout to get 50% off your first order. That's 50% off your first order. By using code CROOKED or going to cookunity.com CROOKED.

[Tommy Vietor]

Today, I am thrilled to be joined by the authors of the new book Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, great to see you both.

[Jonathan Swan]

Thank you.

[Maggie Haberman]

Thanks for having us.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thank you for doing this. So, first of all, congrats on the book and for getting this thing into the world. I know a staggering amount of work went into this book. I think you have over a thousand interviews that is remarkable. And the result is just this incredible page turner that provides a level of insight into how Donald Trump operates and how this administration works that I just haven't found everywhere else. And I'm a. I'm a total sicko. And I follow this for a living and I follow these people for a living. And I was learning a lot. And I know you both are sickos who follow every move of this president. Maggie, I know you had the good fortune of getting to know him back in New York a long time ago. So you guys know the subject as well as anyone. So my first question is just a general one, which is for both of you, what's the top line takeaway for you in terms of what you think has changed from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0? And then after that, I was hoping you both could just sort of tell us about the experience of bringing this reporting to Donald Trump and having to interview him about it. Why don't we start with you, Maggie?

[Jonathan Swan]

Sure. So one of the things that we tried to convey in this book, and I think we did, Tommy, is that this is just a fundamentally different term than Trump won. This is a very different presidency. This is not 2017 anymore. This is not people who this president had never met before serving, not just throughout this administration, but in his White House. This is a group of people who are deeply aligned with him, who had spent many, many years thinking of some of them, not all of them, but thinking about how they could use the levers of power for a specific agenda. Trump himself has been thinking about various aspects of this presidency, one of which he's been very open about, which is retribution. And you are seeing a president wield power in a way that is fundamentally changing the way people look at America around the globe, the way Americans interact with their president. And certainly not in our lifetime that we've seen this. I'm not sure there has been something like this. And we tried to show additionally to his unique qualities, never admitting defeat, never having any shame, refusing to be thrown out of the arena, the various factors outside of his control that added to that. But he is coming back to. Came back to Washington with a very, very different climate. It was a completely cowed Republican Congress, cowed tech leaders, cow donors, law firms who were facing threats of executive orders, media companies that were concerned about being targeted by the government. And he has very happily wielded that power.

[Maggie Haberman]

I agree with everything Maggie said. It's really hard to emphasize sufficiently how different this is from term one. It's almost unrecognizable in the way he's operating as president. And I'll just give you one kind of other way to think about it, which is, in term one, he was quite reactive to domestic politics. The polls were down. He would be reactive to that stock market. What's it doing today? What did he last see on tv? And I still think that's a lens through which people are viewing him this term. I still see a lot of kind of commentary that kind of analyzes him through that term. Look, it's not binary, it's not black and white. It's not to say he doesn't care at all about those things in the midterms, but he cares far less. Donald Trump this term. We picked this up pretty early in our reporting and it became very evident when we sat down finally across from him, he views himself and is trying to create this for himself as a capital G. Great man of history, as a sort of Napoleonic figure. And he literally handed us this two page document when we were there with him in the Oval Office, which he said was written by a historian. And it compared him to what he described as the quote, unquote, top 10. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror,

[Jonathan Swan]

the Caesars.

[Maggie Haberman]

The Caesars. The Caesars. So, and okay, you know, I'm not sure that most American presidents would be happy about being included in that company. He was relishing this comparison. It wasn't a moral comparison. There was actually very, almost no mention of morality or values in this document. It was purely comparing them on the metric of power. And the assertion that this quote, unquote historian made was that Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed on the planet because he's in charge of the United States, the most powerful military that's ever existed, most powerful technology that's ever existed, but that he's also, that he's willing to use that power. And, and you know, as peculiar as the source of this information was, it actually turned out not to be a historian. It was, it was Gary Player, the golfers former caddy. But, but, but setting that aside, the thesis actually was not so dissimilar to the reporting that we had been doing, which is this is a president now who is willing to take enormous risks, enormous risks on the global stage, whether it be going in and snatching a sovereign head of state out of his bedroom in his pajamas without even talking to Congress, whether it be starting a new war in the Middle east without even talking to Congress, starting a trade war against the whole world, which he did last April. He wants to put his imprint on the world and this country and build monuments to himself. And he's far less concerned about whatever the latest polls are or the midterm elections or the future of the Republican Party than he is Making Donald Trump a capital G great man of history.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow.

[Tommy Vietor]

Gary Players caddy.

[Jon Lovett]

What a.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay, hot start, guys. This is. That's an amazing anecdote. Okay, so there's so much I want to ask you about. I personally think for me, the, the corruption has been the most shocking part of the second term. We could go down the list. There's the stock trades, there's the people trading on the Maduro operation. On Kelly she. There's the secret half a billion dollar sale of the crypto business to the Emirati backed firm. There's the pardons, there's the Qatari jet. The list literally goes on and on. But I want to focus on the jet for a minute because you report in the book that Qatar initially wanted to be paid between 150 to 200 million dollars for the plane, but then suddenly the plane was a gift. And you said the idea for making it a gift was, quote, generated at the POTUS level. And I was wondering if you could unpack what that means a little bit and then just, just your sense of Trump's general mindset about using his office to make money and how that mindset has sort of extended or not to his family, his staff and the people around him.

[Jonathan Swan]

Yeah, so working backwards on that one, Tommy on the Qatari jet. And that was really the first neon sign example of what we saw with this president outside of the crypto business, which came into existence in 2024 during the campaign. That alone was enormous. That was completely shattered. We'd not seen a president do something like that before. It speaks to a mindset that is across this government. It is certainly clear for this president and it is clear for members of his family that they feel like they gave up a lot. I mean, they openly say this. We gave up a lot because Trump ran. We were under investigation. We lost lots of money. We lost golf tournaments at our clubs and so forth. And there's no laws prohibiting this and there's nothing that stops this. And Trump openly said this to some of our colleagues earlier this year, actually. And he also said nobody cared, that he was trying to adhere to some guidelines. There were people who cared. It just didn't violate laws. And presidents are exempt, as most people know, from ethics laws in a different way. So this jet was initially described by. We actually, I think, were the first people to write about the fact that they were thinking about this jet. Suddenly there was this memo, this joint memo from the DOJ and the White House counsel, and it was that there was nothing that was going to prohibit the government from accepting this jet and then it being transferred over to the Trump library. It is true there have been times in history of this country when the Defense Department has accepted gifts right, in the forms of plane or aircraft or whatever, not usually quite like this. And yes, this was a, an older jet that the Qatari royal family had used. It was not brand new. They, according to our reporting, did initially want to sell it. And then it suddenly became a gift. And generated at the poetist level in our understanding was it was conversations that people close to the president were having with counterparts elsewhere as to how to acquire this. I think there is still a lot to be learned about how it happened. But remember, the president described this as a free jet, that no taxpayer money would go to it. In fact, it has cost several hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer upgrades to make it safe for presidents. It's just got delivered in recent days. So that was one example that made clear that we were just in a very, very different world. It took months of reporting by the Wall Street Journal to uncover that secret sale of a 49% stake in the Trump crypto company that they have with the Witkoff family to I think it was an Emirati royal backed company, royal family backed company. There are other deals that the Trump family is engaged in. And again, the posture has been nothing prohibits this. We're allowed to. It's so blatant and on a scale we have just never seen before. There have obviously been accusations of self dealing from presidents in the past. This is unlike anything that I can recall seeing and really being written about in modern history at any rate. And I do think that the public is starting to pick up on it. That is puncturing something that he had been able to hang onto for a long time, which was the sense that he is a successful businessman. He didn't gain anything from this. There is a recurring theme and it's hard to ignore.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And Jonathan, I mean, staying on this corruption piece, we've heard about the ballroom, we've heard about the arc to Trump, the PAC fundraising. You guys do a bunch of reporting on the Trump Presidential Library Fund. In fact, you report that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick personally donated $25 million to the Trump Presidential Library Fund and that this donation came after reports about Lutnick's kids maybe making money off of administration policy in a way that was deemed unsavory in the process.

[Donald Trump]

Press.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'd love to hear more about that. And then also, can you talk about it sounds like Eric Trump is leading a very Aggressive effort to raise money that includes individuals like Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf. Just sort of blatant conflicts of interest. I'd love to hear more about it.

[Maggie Haberman]

People around Trump have described to us that they want to raise $2 billion for his presidential library. And if you've seen it, it's. It's essentially a tower that looks like the Freedom Tower, that sort of towers above the Miami skyline. In no way is it a presidential library. And you've seen, like, the montage if you go in there and there's like a. As you. It's like a gold statue of Donald Trump and restaurants and God knows what else. So the reason we found out about the Howard Lutnick example is in the Oval Office. Trump. Trump brings it up. There was something that Howard Lutnick said and Trump said, this is in front of a group of people, something to the effect of. The only reason I put up with Howard's bullshit is he gave me $25 million. And you know, how Trump, just the way he talks and, you know, and other times you say, you know, Howard's so great, I just asked him for the money, and he immediately gave it to me, or some version of that. But what we also found is that people around Trump, Eric Trump and others have been approaching and discussing with Gulf monarchies, funding this library. And often the trail heads back to the Gulf. You know, this is what makes a lot of this so remarkable, is you have an administration that is conducting foreign policy dealing with the Gulf. I mean, selling chips, highly advanced chips, to the Emirates at the same time as the Emirates, putting $2 billion into the Trump and Witkoff family crypto business. You have the Qatari jet, the Trump family business, doing all kinds of deals in the Middle east, and then the business of state. It's just one giant, you know, playground, really, with no borders between. Well, put it. Let's just say it's very hard sometimes to delineate the borders between official business and private business. And so it's almost impossible to cover, because I truly think we only know 1%. Yes, maybe 5% of what's going on. And we. This is a story that our colleagues have done phenomenal reporting on, people like Eric Lipton, the Wall Street Journal and others. You know, we've done a, you know, modest part of it that we've tried to contribute in this particular. But, my lord, like, we have. I don't think we really have a concept of the breadth and depth of this yet.

[Jon Favreau]

I really don't now.

[Jonathan Swan]

And one thing, Tommy, that I would just add is the figure $2 billion, it's double to a presidential library that I think you might be familiar with. And our understanding from our reporting is that that's not a coincidence. President Trump has never stopped being very focused on President Obama, but he was also, in our reporting, found, delighted that President Biden is having a very hard time fundraising, and that just made him want to do more. But to Jonathan's point, the models that they have for this library, it's a hotel, is how it's conceived. And they are also still planning on taking this Qatari jet with them. I don't know what that looks like for Air Force One, for another president in two and a half years. But Jonathan is right that there is a lot more to be learned here. We don't pretend to think we have covered the waterfront.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I mean, the crypto transactions alone are. You can't possibly follow who is buying Trump coin or Melania coin on any given day. I mean, the opportunities for corruption are just staggering. Maggie, one thing that reading the book really helped me understand in a new way was just how chaotic the management of. Of the country and then Trump's own time when he's in the Oval Office really is. You describe Trump's time in the Oval Office not really as a day that is structured with meetings, but more like kind of a rolling bull session with some advisors. Whoever's in town visiting. You guys report on a scene where, like, there's some poor NSC goons in the corner trying to get sign off on a classified program. On the other side of the office, someone's on speakerphone from Mar A Lago. The decorator walks in with, like, rug samples or something that blows up the whole conversation.

[Jonathan Swan]

The pavers for the Rose Gardens.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sorry, the pavers for the Rose Gardens.

[Jonathan Swan]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tell us about, like, paint us a picture of what it's like inside the Oval Office and how decisions are getting made.

[Jonathan Swan]

Yeah, look, I mean, we describe, as you say, this setting. We're describing sort of an average day. Right. And you could take any given moment over the course of the last 17 months, whatever, 17 and a half months, and one meeting collides into the next. And Trump often invites people in to take part in other meetings. One example of that in the book is the meeting where Laura Loomer is listing people at the NSC and elsewhere in the government who she is telling the President are against him. And Scott Perry, the Congressman, comes in for a separately scheduled meeting, and then they start talking. And so there are constant scenes like this. And it has just become very familiar to everybody in Trump's world. It's how he functioned at Mar A Lago, it's how he functioned at Trump Tower. Some of this was the case in term one. It is much more expansive now in terms of how the government is being managed. What was really striking to us, and we do describe this in the reporting in the book, is just how small the group of people running this government is. There's a handful of people, and at their agencies, at the State Department, at the Pentagon, at the CIA, at odni, you can go down the list. And if they are not, people leading those agencies are not in the room with the president, if they're not in the Oval Office, they often don't know what's going on. You know, one of the things that we talk about a lot is the fact that this administration makes a show of transparency, but they actually are quite good at keeping secrets when they want to and prefer it. There is a great deal that is kept secret. So much so that in the lead up to the Iran war on February 28, the energy secretary and the Treasury Secretary had not been part of most of the meetings. The two people who would be impacted by a global energy crisis the most in this government were not part of it because this government is also very paranoid and worried about leaks. And that's also why you see the Situation Room used the way it is so often.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And it's probably not going to be helped by your book because we're all reading about the big freakout about, you know, everyone wondering about your sourcing, which I will not ask you to comment on. But, Jonathan, related to the kind of management question is just the picture you paint of how Trump gets information. For example, you guys report that Trump was kind of largely oblivious about this massive fight within MAGA that has erupted over US Support for Israel. And that anecdote really shocked me because, I mean, it seemed like everyone was talking about and reporting on it. And usually he has a pretty good, you know, sort of antenna for the base. And it made me wonder about his information diet generally, which you guys, I think, describe as information from Fox News and then positive news printed out by a staffer named Natalie Harp. Can you tell folks who Natalie Harp is and sort of more about this information diet and whether does any news break through to Donald Trump that is like, factual but bad for him at this point?

[Maggie Haberman]

Yeah, it's not quite as black and white as that, but it's not far off what you just described. Natalie Harp is a young woman who has worked for Donald Trump for a few years. Used to be an anchor on oan, which is a far right network. One story that Maggie and I broke, and it's mentioned in the book, she's basically the most devoted, let's say to Donald Trump more than anyone we've ever seen. She writes him these. She has written him numerous letters that she's left for him, including one that says, you are all that matters to me. Or some version of that raised the eyebrows of the Secret Service during the campaign.

[Tommy Vietor]

Mine too. Mine are up.

[Maggie Haberman]

Some of these letters that were left in some of his private quarters, and she's just totally devoted to him. In Oval Office meetings, she sits on the chair, the side of the room with her laptop open. And Trump, they call her the human prince. So Trump basically just says, natalie, get me this. Or he's, you know, Google this. We have a scene in the book where during the trade war lead up to the Liberation Day, where he declares a trade war against the whole world where he's just not believing the trade, the deficit numbers that Howard Lutnick is giving him. And he says, natalie, Google me the real numbers. So she's, you know, furiously Googling, you know, and of course the real numbers don't exist because what Secretary Lucknow had given him were actually the real numbers. But so that's who she is. His information diet has constricted. There's no question in term one, he was scrolling Twitter a lot more, which just gave him much more exposure to just random things that were coming across the transom. He still does watch msnbc, as you've noticed, when he rages against Joe Scarlet and Mika and, you know, he'll still watch CNN and, you know, but it's really Fox all the time. And that whole world of the manosphere podcast, he exploited that to his advantage very effectively during the campaign, but it wasn't like he was ever a consumer of it. Like, Donald Trump doesn't sit there listening to, like Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson's podcast. They might as well not exist. He'll occasionally hear, oh, yeah, Joe Rogan's been criticizing know you, but he's not tuned into that. He's just watching Fox and hearing largely from people who support him. You know, the patio at Mar A Lago is full of flatterers who are coming by you. Great job. You're doing an amazing job. Mr. President and his staff are people who largely believe in him, like him not people like the first term who thought that he was dangerous or somebody that needed to be reined in. That's just not the dynamic at all. So. And then he's got, you know, outside people like Boris Epstein, who's his personal lawyer and enforcer, who, you know, he is so positive to Trump that Trump even jokes about it. He's, you know, he'll tell aides like, oh, I get indicted, and Boris tells me it's the best news ever. So that's, I mean, that's the environment. You know, presidents always exist in a bubble, but this is a really thick bubble. This is an almost impenetrable triple bubble that Donald Trump exists in.

[Jonathan Swan]

He's also much less willing to believe the bad news is the other piece, frankly. I mean, people will bring him information and say things like we've always heard him say some version of, to Jonathan's point about bring me the real numbers. Those poll numbers are fake. The real ones are Trafalgar or whatever, something that he considers to be more in line with how he sees the world. But it is hard to, for people who are trying to tell him that actually there are other things happening to get through to him that way. And just one addition to Jonathan's point about how often Fox is on, Fox is far less critical just in the main of him than it was at various points in term. One, Fox was obviously not msnbc, but he received more criticism on certain shows than he does at all now. And that has an impact, too.

[Tommy Vietor]

So that sort of brings me to my next question about the lowest moment. It wasn't a moment, it was the lowest several months, which was their handling of the Epstein files, their mishandling of the Epstein files. I just want to get your read on how and why you think they mishandled it so badly. Is this because there's no good answers? Trump was really good friends with Jeffrey Epstein. He was for decades. He was a total creep at the time. Maybe, like, there's not great, great way to spin that. Did they misread the politics and not listen to the more online People like J.D. vance who are warning them? And then relatedly, I mean, you guys have these incredible scenes in the Situation Room where Trump's team is trying to figure out how to do damage control for him. But the story keeps getting worse. You know, we, we see the doodle that is in the Wall Street Journal that he put into the birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein. Did anyone you talked to say to you, like, you know what? It was personally pretty upsetting and demoralizing to learn that this guy we work for was actually part of this cabal that we had promised to take down during the campaign.

[Maggie Haberman]

Well, I think at the start of all of this, the first thing to understand is that from a staff point of view, you're limited in what you can do when the person you're working for. The President wants it all to disappear. He wanted this whole thing to disappear. I mean, he didn't. He didn't want transparency, didn't want all this stuff to come out, and he would get snappy when people brought it up in his presence. So what the staff did was they had these conversations largely away from Donald Trump. They had them in the Situation Room for secrecy. You know, as you know, Tommy, from your time in the. This is one of the most guarded rooms in the government as a National Security command center, essentially, that they turned into a sort of Jeffrey Epstein crisis response center. And these are the top officials in the government sitting around the table trying to craft a PR strategy. What was evident to his staff very early on was that a Donald Trump's name was all over these files. I mean, the New York Times, we found more than 38,000 references to Trump and his family in places like Mar a Lago in these files. But it was also just a sense of. Of not knowing really what was out there and not being able to have these candid conversations with Trump. I do think one thing you said is true, which is early on, senior people on his team underestimated the political salience of this issue. And remember, for a lot of them who've gone through all kinds of scandal and crisis with Donald Trump, from their point of view, this is just another one. Why would this be different from, you know, Access Hollywood or, you know, go down the list? But it was. And it was very frustrating to Trump himself because he's so used to telling his base, think this, do this, and it shall be done. And this was this issue where, perhaps because some of his own people had helped, you know, whip up the hysteria and conspiracy about Epstein, the base just wasn't listening. The base just refused to kind of take direction on that. And it. It just hung around. And one thing we obtained in our reporting for the book is private focus group research that Trump's team did this year. Not last year, this year, almost a full year after they first tried to start dealing with the Epstein thing, Epstein was still cutting through in these focus groups to an alarming extent for Trump's team. So, you know, all these meetings happened, but it was A turning point, I think we can now say with some level of confidence last summer is when Trump's political fortunes really started to decline. And one of Trump's advisors compared to Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan as sort of the moment in the Biden admin when you start to see, you know, it's not dissimilar with Epstein and it's still a problem even to this day politically.

[Tommy Vietor]

Maggie, you know, you guys have reported on a bunch of folks about to report it on Trump enjoying to compare and publicly rank Rubio vs. J.D. vance. But you guys write that even early on, like back in 2021, I think that Trump's aides noticed he had more personal chemistry with Marco Rubio than Vance. Now, Vance obviously wages a pretty effective charm campaign. He goes from calling him, you know, comparing him to Hitler to getting on the ticket. You write that Trump was impressed by Vance's intellect and good looks. I'm going to take issue with the part of that, but whatever. Is this an endlessly fun parlor game and way to torture these guys, or is he really trying to kind of constantly focus group and figure out the future of maga? How do you view it?

[Jonathan Swan]

A couple of things. But, but one is you mentioned the J.D. vance criticism of Trump and the, the, the Hitler comment, which I think was made in a text exchange with someone. It's not like Marco Rubio was exactly subtle about Donald Trump. They ran against each other. There was a whole, you know, genitalia adjacent, whatever on the primary debate stage.

[Maggie Haberman]

It wasn't very adjacent.

[Jonathan Swan]

Oh, sorry. It was just genitalia. Sorry.

[Tommy Vietor]

It was a literal dick measuring contest at a rally.

[Jonathan Swan]

I'm just gonna leave it there with you, Tommy. So I think that a couple of things, One, as you know very well, the second that somebody who is in office and is term limited, which the President is, despite all the conversation around this, once they endorse somebody, they stop being quite as relevant and their lame duck status starts to increase. Donald Trump is not exactly somebody who is going to disappear quietly into that good night, as we've been saying throughout this episode, number one. So he's in no rush for that because he sees this as his party and his movement for a variety of reasons. I do think it is fun for him. I do think he enjoys it. As long as he has been in politics, he has done this. He did this, this with Mike Pence and Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie in 2016, immediately in the lead up to when he announced that it was Pence. He was still leaving the idea open that it might be Chris Christie still, which he'd already offered it to Pence. So, yes, there is the game aspect of it. It's hard to look at the existing fundamentals of the modern Republican Party and the MAGA movement and not see how JD Vance is still very much the prohibitive front runner. Now, obviously, lots can change, but I also don't think that Donald Trump is going to completely defy reality, if that's where it's going. But again, these predictions are not worth a whole lot. I do think we will continue to see much more of this going forward,

[Maggie Haberman]

but it's totally on an interpersonal level, it's totally bizarre. I mean, we have a lot of this in the book, but we have a scene in the book where Rupert Murdoch comes to the White House for dinner.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Maggie Haberman]

Sitting on the same table as Trump in the Blue Room of the White House. And J.D. vance and Marco Rubio are at the table. And Trump, right there with the both of them at the table, asks Rupert Murdoch to assess each of them. And Murdoch gives Marco Rubio a much more hearty, you know, endorsement than Vance. I mean, this is what Trump is subjecting his vice president, too. I think the only thing we can be confident of is that he's not gonna make it comfortable or easy for him. He's just going to keep doing this. It's just who he is.

[Jonathan Swan]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think the quotes you have is Murdoch says, I think JD has the potential to be great. And of Rubio, he says, marco is brilliant. So, yeah, that'd be tough to hear. Jonathan, I tracked the Trump foreign policy closely. I just find it particularly interesting. And since the beginning, I've been trying to understand the emergence of Steve Witkoff, who for the listeners, is like Trump's real estate and golf buddy turned diplomatic envoy for everything. This anecdote from the book blew my mind. So you have this scene where Witkoff is, I believe, in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin. The anecdote goes like this. What are you drawing, sir? Wyckoff asked. Putin held up a piece of paper in thick, looping pen strokes. It said three plus two, which is shorthand for the territorial framework that Wyckoff had discussed with them. Three, obelisk Russia would keep outright, and two, where the fighting would freeze in place, quote, can you. Can you sign that for me and I can take it home? Witkoff asked. Putin signed the drawing and Wyckoff brought it home where he had it framed in black with taupe matte. So, two questions for listeners like, basically what Woff is asking to be framed. There is a piece of paper that would memorialize an agreement that would be capitulation for the Ukrainians. And I think a lot of people would argue validation validates Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Why would Wyckoff want that, in your view? And then more importantly, like, what do you make of Witkoff's emergence and his motivations? Because by all accounts, he seems like a very nice man, one who seemingly is in over his head, understandably, by the way. I think anyone would be in his position. But also, it's hard not to see his son's role at World Liberty Financial, the crypto business, and worry about conflicts of interest and corruption.

[Maggie Haberman]

So Steve Witkoff has no, before this term, had no diplomatic experience, full stop. No foreign policy experience, full stop. There is a commonality at the most senior levels of Trump world, which is a contempt for subject matter expertise and subject matter experts. Jared Kushner would often to others speak with contempt about, you know, people who've worked on Middle east deals forever. And there's a feeling from these guys, there always has been, that they have fresh ideas, fresh answers, private sector thinking. You know, you've heard all of this before. Trump, again, Trump feels comfortable with Witkoff saw him as a deal maker, thought that he could bring home a quick deal with Putin. Trump thought it would be very easy to end this war. When he was saying 24 hours, it actually, in Trump's mind, it think was that much of a rhetorical flourish. I think he genuinely thought he could end this conflict very quickly and has been quite frustrated that it hadn't, that it hasn't, that Witkoff hasn't been able to bring home a deal. Witkoff, from what we can gather from his colleagues, views the conflict. There's not really a sense of Putin as a villain and an aggressor and Ukraine as a victim. It's actually, you know, we have a scene in the book where Trump is with his inner circle in the Oval Office hashing out, you know, supposedly going to hash out the Russia, Ukraine policy. And Keith Kellogg, who was his original envoy, is dutifully giving this presentation, which he spent all this time on. Unbeknownst to Kellogg, Trump already had a back channel set up with Witkoff. He hadn't told Kellogg about that. He's doing this presentation, and during the presentation, Trump is interrupting him by saying things like, the only good thing about Ukraine is the women. They keep winning Miss Universe. Zelenskyy's terrible. He's destroyed his country. So the animist, when the animus comes out, it's almost never against Putin. It's almost always against Ukraine and Zelensky. And I think Witkoff saw his job as bringing this conflict to an end, but really viewed those leaders on a flat plane without really making moral distinctions. I mean, we have another line in the book where he tells Putin that, you know, Russia's good at a lot of things, but they're really bad at pr, as if. As if the Kremlin's main problem was a PR problem. So that's the mindset. And, you know, he goes and meets with Putin on his own. He really doesn't use staff like someone in that role would normally use staff. And as a result, there have been times where I think there's been miscommunication and misunderstandings. And, you know, it turns out diplomacy is complicated and this conflict was not easy to resolve. And in fact, it's still raging on many, many 24 hours after the initial 24 hours when he was gonna solve it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. Well, I think, well, down the road maybe we'll learn more about this, whether there's a corruption piece of this to the Wyckoff story. But listen, you guys have given me a lot of time. Time on an unbelievably busy week. The book again is Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. I cannot recommend it highly enough to our audience who are desperate to try to understand Donald Trump, the man, this administration, the decision making process, and also just to, I think, even read things that we knew again, but in a way that puts together the whole scene and helps you understand all the different motivations and people involved. It's an extraordinary piece of work.

[Jonathan Swan]

Work.

[Tommy Vietor]

So congratulations to both of you for getting this thing done and out into the world and for talking with me today. Jonathan Nagy, thank you so much.

[Jonathan Swan]

Thanks, Tommy.

[Maggie Haberman]

Thanks so much.

[Jon Lovett]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Maggie and Jonathan for coming on. Everybody check out Regime Change. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farah Safari with Rhee Cherlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Kanter, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelaviev, David Toles, Mia Kellman, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America.