Trump Desperate for Strait Allies

Summary

Pod Save America — "Trump Desperate for Strait Allies"

Date: March 17, 2026
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor

Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the escalating Iran war, the resulting energy crisis, Donald Trump's desperate attempts to assemble an international coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the mounting political, diplomatic, and media fallout. The conversation tracks disarray in the Trump administration, tensions within the GOP, controversial fundraising and corruption stories, the evolution of right-wing media spats, and the remarkable accessibility of President Trump to the press. There are also lighter moments involving MAGA in-fighting and the now-infamous “micro penis” feud.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Trump’s Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis (04:17–18:58)

• Trump’s Framing & Press Events
  • Trump addresses the Iran conflict only briefly at a Kennedy Center event, focusing more on renovations than on the ongoing war and casualties.
  • "We are pounding that area, that coast. Pounding, pounding, pounding, pounded. Pounding it hard." — Donald Trump, mocking “tough guy” rhetoric (04:17)
• Diplomatic Isolation & Allies
  • Trump publicly laments America's allies’ reluctance to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, complaining they've refused despite US defense support for decades.
  • Impressions of allies are mostly “doy, doy, doy,” with hosts mocking his crude diplomacy (07:21).
  • NATO leaders refuse cooperation, highlighting deteriorated US relationships.
  • Oil prices balloon ($100/barrel), no merchant ships are passing; energy crisis looms.
• On-the-Ground Stakes & Escalation
  • US has deployed 2,500 more Marines, joining 50,000+ already in the region.
  • Possibility of boots-on-the-ground increases as Trump and Israel consider seizing Kharg Island or Iranian nuclear material (13:36–16:07).
  • "You would need ground troops... boots on the ground for a while. So that is very, very dangerous." — Tommy Vietor (15:35)
• War’s Predictability & Administration Missteps
  • Hosts note Iran’s response—closures, counterattacks—was highly predictable and warned by experts, but dismissed by the White House.
  • "It's actually a pretty Leroy Jenkins going to war with Iran. He ran in there, and everybody's like, what’s he doing?" — Jon Lovett (13:07)

2. Political Backlash & Republican In-Fighting (21:50–29:12)

• JD Vance’s Leaked Dissent
  • Politico leak: Vice President JD Vance privately warned against Iran operations, but is publicly evasive and meek when pressed (22:20).
  • “Are you completely on board…?” "Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president..." — (22:20–22:48)
  • Seen by hosts as an opportunistic political move meant to hedge against future GOP primaries.
  • Rubio’s likelihood as an anti-Vance alternative discussed, but both are tarred by the war.
  • "He’s just so full of shit. They want, like, Rubio is smart enough …there's no way to run away from being tied to this." — Jon Lovett (24:36)
• MAGA Isolationist Energy
  • Prediction: This will energize the Tucker Carlson/Marjorie Taylor Greene isolationist GOP wing in 2028, leaving Vance and Rubio damaged (25:46–27:34).

3. Trump’s Media Attacks and FCC Threats (29:27–37:12)

• Accusing Media of Treason
  • Trump accuses US outlets of “treason” for reporting on US war casualties, threatens prosecution and license removal (30:05).
  • “It’s pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false, that it’s a very dangerous thing.” — Donald Trump (30:17)
  • FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatens TV broadcaster licenses, considered chilling by hosts.
• Impact on Press Freedom
  • Hosts recall pro-war bias and self-censorship in media pre-Iraq War, warning new threats make it worse.
  • "Even the threat itself is enough to try to intimidate people into kind of hesitating." — Jon Lovett (31:13)
• Legal Reality vs. Intimidation
  • FCC threat is called largely bluster, but damage still done through chilling effect and network legal pressure (35:22–37:12).

4. Right-Wing Feuding: MAGA Blows Up Over Iran and “Micro Penis” (37:12–43:44)

• Trump vs. Right-Wing Dissenters
  • Trump posts angry defenses of hawkish commentator Mark Levin after attacks from Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens (38:26).
  • Notable “micro penis” insult from Kelly to Levin; Marjorie Taylor Greene amplifies it.
• Fracturing of MAGA Media
  • Feud seen as a proxy for deeper fracture on foreign policy and Israel inside right-wing media and GOP base.
  • “I think this is a fight for the future of MAGA and there are major shifts happening under the surface.” — Tommy Vietor (40:57)
  • “When they go low, we go micro penis.” — Megyn Kelly paraphrased by Jon Favreau (41:33)

5. Corruption and Profiteering During War (46:01–56:48)

• Trump PAC Fundraising off Soldier Deaths
  • PAC uses images of flag-draped coffins in fundraising emails; hosts denounce as unprecedentedly tasteless and cynical.
  • “One of the most disgusting images I think I’ve ever seen. Shocking, actually.” — Jon Lovett (47:21)
• Jared Kushner’s Gulf Deals
  • Kushner asks Gulf states to fund his private investment firm while negotiating “peace.” Hosts see it as kickbacks for prior favors.
  • “He would not be making any money off the Board of Peace. Of course, that was a lie.” — Tommy Vietor (49:59)
• Market Corruption: Markwayne Mullin’s Chevron Trades
  • New Secretary of DHS nominee Markwayne Mullen trades Chevron stock days before US attacks Venezuela, then profits when operations expand.
  • “It will never be a coincidence this guy bought Chevron stock five days before we toppled a dictator.” — Tommy Vietor (56:04)
  • Call for strengthening Congressional stock-trading bans.

6. Trump’s Extreme Press Accessibility (59:39–72:10)

• Trump’s Phone Number: DC’s Open Secret
  • Reporters now readily obtain Trump’s cell number; the president eagerly answers or returns calls, craving attention.
  • Hosts try (and fail) to call him live.
  • “He apparently has gotten into the habit of keeping his phone screen face up during meetings to just watch the notifications roll in.” — (59:39)
  • Lighter banter: trading suggestions on how to get through; jokes about Substack writers flooding his line.
• Contrast with Past Presidents
  • Extended reflection on pros and cons of such accessibility; compared to Biden and Obama’s more controlled press strategies.
  • “There is value to having Donald Trump, like, in there every day communicating non stop…he has a lot more space to move…” — Jon Lovett (65:19)
  • Hosts debate if this style helps or hurts Trump—consensus: narrative control sometimes helps, but doesn’t prevent abysmal approval ratings and policy disasters.
  • “I think his constant style of communication is probably helpful. I think, like, being more accessible to reporters here and there…I think for him it might be OK because he’s lying about everything anyway and screaming at them all anyway.” — Jon Favreau (67:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s actually a pretty Leroy Jenkins going to war with Iran. He ran in there and everybody’s like, what’s he doing?” — Jon Lovett (13:07)
• “You would need ground troops... boots on the ground for a while. So that is very, very dangerous.” — Tommy Vietor (15:35)
• “One of the most disgusting images I think I’ve ever seen. Shocking, actually.” — Jon Lovett on the coffin PAC email (47:21)
• “Are we going to be in a situation where Donald Trump gives more space to his VP to operate than Joe Biden did?” — Jon Lovett (29:18)
• “When they go low, we go micro penis.” — Megyn Kelly (paraphrased; 41:33)
• “He apparently has gotten into the habit of keeping his phone screen face up during meetings to just watch the notifications roll in.” — On Trump’s cell number habit (59:39)
• “I think this is a fight for the future of MAGA and there are major shifts happening under the surface.” — Tommy Vietor (40:57)
• “Privately telling her no, daylight certainly wasn’t great.” — Tommy Vietor on Biden/Kamala Harris dynamic (28:53)
• “It will never be a coincidence this guy bought Chevron stock five days before we toppled a dictator.” — Tommy Vietor (56:04)

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Important Timestamps (MM:SS)

• Trump’s Iran rhetoric and Kennedy Center tangent: 04:17–07:21
• Energy crisis, Strait of Hormuz, and allies: 07:21–12:43
• Escalatory war plans; Carg Island: 13:36–16:07
• Doubts about honesty in war reporting/diplomacy: 16:55–18:04
• JD Vance’s anonymous antiwar leak; Rubio speculation: 21:50–25:46
• Media intimidation: Trump/FCC attacks: 29:27–37:12
• MAGA feuds, “micro penis” saga: 37:12–43:44
• PAC fundraising off soldiers, Kushner, Mullen corruption: 46:01–56:48
• Trump’s cell phone open season: 59:39–62:34
• Debate over press accessibility and narrative control: 65:19–71:29

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Tone

True to Pod Save America’s style: blunt, irreverent, heavily sarcastic, policy-driven but punctuated with pop culture riffs, in-group banter, and sharp-edged humor. The episode balances deep dives on political dysfunction and war with frequent mockery of Trump, his administration, and the various characters embroiled in right-wing drama.

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For Listeners Just Tuning In

You’ll get a rich mix of war and peace, political strategy, corruption exposés, MAGA meltdown drama, and a window onto both Washington dysfunction and how media sausage is made—all from the left-of-center, ex-Obama inner circle vantage point. If you missed the show, this summary should bring you up to speed on both the serious and absurd in U.S. politics this week.

Transcript

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Tommy Vietor]

to save the sun shining, birds are

[Jon Lovett]

singing and all feels right in the

[Jon Favreau]

world until the and suddenly you lose

[Tommy Vietor]

your motivation to get out of bed.

[Jon Favreau]

In fact, one in five people experience

[Tommy Vietor]

some form of depression no matter the season or time of year.

[Jon Lovett]

At the American Psychiatric association foundation, our

[Tommy Vietor]

Vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all. Because we want you to live your

[Jon Lovett]

best life and be your best you all year round.

[Jon Favreau]

Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Lovett.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tommy Vitor.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we're going to talk about all the latest developments in Trump's war, the energy crisis he's created, JD Vance's courageous opposition via anonymous leaks, the President accusing media outlets of treason in his FC DC chair threatening to take away their broadcast licenses, Trump fundraising off of the death of American soldiers. And finally, what would you trade to get the President's personal cell phone number holding into the hottest new trend in D.C. cold calling Donald Trump. Also, please consider becoming a subscriber if you haven't already, so that you don't miss out on any crooked content. Friend of the POD subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends. Many people are saying it's the greatest new show on the air right now. Pod Save America Only Friends.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it's just for the subscribers. It's where we have our real opinions.

[Tommy Vietor]

There you go.

[Jon Lovett]

That's where we save them for.

[Jon Favreau]

There, the most correct tape.

[Tommy Vietor]

Buying the paywall.

[Jon Favreau]

You also get other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America, open tabs ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods, and you get to feel good about supporting an independent, pro democracy media company that Brendan Carr can't shut down. We are beyond. We are beyond his regulatory try. So head to cricket.com friends and subscribe today. All right, let's get to the news. As the Iran war enters its third week with no end in sight. Trump said a few words about the conflict at the top of his remarks during a White House event about the Kennedy center renovations, where it was clear the President had one thing on his mind.

[Donald Trump]

We are pounding that area, that coast. Pounding, pounding, pounding, pounded. Pounding it hard. They took a pounding from Rick. You know, he knows what it is to pound people. He's a little rough with a couple of the people, but that's okay. They've, they've survived.

[Jon Favreau]

I didn't watch that beforehand on purpose. That was great work. Just a masterful super cut there. There was a lot of pounding. A lot of pounding.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know what else getting pounded? New supreme leader of Iran, apparently, according to the New York Post.

[Jon Favreau]

Allegedly.

[Tommy Vietor]

Allegedly. I guess we'll get to that. Allegedly.

[Jon Favreau]

We don't want to slander him. What do you get, a lawsuit.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. Look, he could pound who he wants. I got to say.

[Jon Lovett]

We got to be low down on that guy's priority list at this point.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that was the joke. Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

We want to wake up. We want to wake up first, I think. Yeah. A lot of. Lot of talk of pounding. Do you think he remembers that Rick Grenell is gay when he's talking about this?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. When he was saying Rick there, he was talking about Rick Grenell, who was running the Kennedy center and then just left.

[Tommy Vietor]

Rick Cornell is a human, a Twitter troll that became a human. Worked in the intel world for a while, was ambassador to Germany, was the DNI for a while, acting DNI in the last administration. Wanted to be Secretary of State, didn't get it, became the head of the Kennedy center, and then got fired from

[Jon Favreau]

that because he was pounding artists. Yes, he's an asshole, as Trump said.

[Tommy Vietor]

Huge asshole.

[Jon Favreau]

Pounding too many artists at the Kennedy Center.

[Jon Lovett]

Doesn't seem like he's a people person in that role because.

[Jon Favreau]

So Trump did address the latest developments in Iran, which he claimed has been literally obliterated before, browbeating other countries for not helping the US Reopen the Strait of Hormuz by sending warships, even though he said, quote, we don't need anybody because we already won. Even though he just sent 2,500 Marines to join the 50,000 US troops deployed in the region. Here's more on all that from our very focused commander in chief.

[Donald Trump]

They have been literally obliterated. Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it and some aren't. And, well, we want to know, do you have any minesweepers? Well, would rather not get involved, sir. I said, you mean for 40 years we're protecting you and you don't want to get involved in something that is very minor? We attacked Carg island and knocked it. Knocked it literally destroyed everything on the island except for the area where the oil is. I call it the pipes. We left the pipes. Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone. To see Trump Kennedy center, it's been let go to hell. The bones are potentially something that could be unbelievable. There's never been a paint. I said, someday I'm going to discover a painting where you don't have to actually use gold leaf. Gold leaf is a very, very big and expensive process, but it's a beautiful thing, but not when you use paint.

[Jon Favreau]

So week three of the war, we are doing Monday morning events about the Kennedy center renovations and said a lot more about the renovations than he did about the war itself.

[Tommy Vietor]

His impression of our allies, Doy, doy, doy.

[Jon Favreau]

So he later talked about, like, how we have 45,000 troops. And he said in Japan defending Japan, South Korea defending South Korea and Germany. So which of those leaders of those three countries do you think he was that he was doing the impression of?

[Jon Lovett]

It's. He definitely didn't want to do. He stopped himself from doing any kind of an accent, which I think is positive.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, that's good.

[Jon Lovett]

I thought, I thought he was talking about Europe and NATO, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I think they have some minesweepers, but it doesn't really matter.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think Chancellor Mertz came out today to say, like, NATO's not for this. It's a defensive alliance. Why would we send troops to help with you with your war of choice? So maybe he was talking about the Germans, but it could have been Japan, it could have been South Korea.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So basically what's happened is, you know, reportedly the Iranians have begun to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz, although Trump today said, we don't know. They might have. We don't know. We can't tell. You know, we haven't seen anything yet. They're all obviously still firing at ships. And so not a lot of no ships are going through basically right now. And, and energy prices, I think oil closed. It's still around $100 a barrel today. And so that's the situation right now. And so Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz, but apparently the US Military can't do it ourselves. And so he is begging all these countries to join, but then not begging them. No one has really said yes yet. I haven't seen. Have you seen any, Tommy?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, not yet. I mean, and he's doing impressions of them that are not very nice. I think the Iranians are letting through oil that are in their tankers or maybe even Chinese owned tank anchors. So they're letting some oil through. Yeah, I'm sure most of these groups that he's making fun of, they're pissed that Trump started this war, didn't consult them, and now he's saying, hey, can you help us out? And he's also being a dick about it. I mean, again, like, the yelling at NATO, like, this is not what NATO is for, their defensive alliance. It's also incredibly dangerous. I mean, he says in that press conference that all you need is one Iranian missile or rocket or mine, and you have a catastrophe. And so why would anyone want to participate in that? I mean, we're not escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz yet. Why would the Japanese or the, you know, Germans want to help us out?

[Jon Favreau]

Trying to. Trying to build a coalition of straight allies. Yeah, exactly.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it's good. Yeah. That's what the. That's what the S is for. Yeah. It's hard to figure out where the mines are. Famously. You have to hover both of the mice button over it, and you'll really only know if there's 1, 2, 3 around you. I just want to. This is beside the point, but it is the idea of Donald Trump, one of the people with sort of worst taste you'd ever could imagine, suggesting that the Kennedy center has great bones when it's one of the most beautiful buildings built in, like, probably the last hundred years. Beautiful thing that he's planning to destroy. Again, not high on the list of reasons to be bothered by Donald Trump, but I do think it's worth mentioning, especially because it is inconceivable, even a couple years ago, maybe even in the first Trump term, that you would be, you know, about a week or so into a war and have unrelated press events related to interior design. You would not typically do that. It would be actually something that I think you'd be kind of a bipartisan uproar about, that a president could possibly think it was worth his or her time to be focused on architecture of local landmarks during a time in which we've just lost now over 13 members of the armed forces. We bombed a school, killed over 175 people, but this is the world we live in.

[Jon Favreau]

Did you see that? He's also considering getting rid of the Ionic columns in front of the White House.

[Jon Lovett]

Prefers Corinthian. Prefers Corinthian.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a little more flair.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, they're gaudier. Right. And I think the. Yeah, he doesn't really appreciate the kind of story that the different kinds of columns tell, but I don't think he took Art History 101 at Williams College in 2003. So I guess that's probably why.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, look at us now. We're distracted from the Iran war anyway.

[Tommy Vietor]

Imagine being one of these countries that he won, wants to get involved in the war. Like today, he said they hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the uae, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked. They fought back. Everyone expected that. What the Iranians are doing is what everyone expected them to do, which is to fire at US Military bases in these places to close the straight of Hormuz. And I don't think most experts I talked to figured that Iran would view this as existential and they would punch back as hard as they possibly could, which probably meant creating an economic cost. And now there's all this reporting that Trump was high on his own supply after Venezuela, and he either dismissed or ignored warnings about how much more complicated an Iran operation would be. And now we're in this mess. And Axios described his staff as having, quote, buyers remorse, but he refuses to back down. So every step is escalatory. And you're telling, like, NATO or the Philippines or Japan to jump into this situation, send your troops.

[Jon Favreau]

I got to say, too, from just a pure political perspective, can't reflect too well on Donald Trump with the American people that we put out a call for our allies to help us, and no one wants to help us. Maybe because he has browbeat all of them, not just in the run up to this war, but on tariffs, on NATO, on everything else. He has basically spent an entire year and many years before that just attacking all of our closest allies, and now he's somehow surprised when they don't come to our aid for his crazy fucking war plans.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he didn't tell us why he was doing this. He clearly didn't tell them either. Yeah, to Tommy's point, like, maybe the most predictable outcome, like, I think you can go back and find papers that say, well, in the event that the Supreme Leader is killed, Iran would view it as an existential threat and therefore might resort to closing the Strait of Hormuz and firing upon other neighboring countries. Like, it's sort of just if the. And the exercise of what would happen. This is what people said would happen, but you're completely unprepared for it. And going around to talk to allies about how they could help after the fact rather than before. Like, do you guys know about, you know, Leroy Jenkins is. When I say Leroy Jenkins, does that mean anything to you? Of course that's what he's doing. It's actually a pretty Leroy Jenkins going to war with Iran. And he ran in there, and everybody's like, we. What are. What's he doing? Like, no, we're not. And so he. Yeah. And he's expecting everybody to come in behind him.

[Tommy Vietor]

Google YouTube it.

[Jon Favreau]

I know, I know.

[Tommy Vietor]

He gave no context for you listening or just YouTube it for whenever it was like.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he mentioned Kharg Island. Kharg island is where something like 90% of Iranian oil exports go out of right, so he talked about bombing the island, all the military installations, not the, not the oil refineries there. So hasn't yet secured any of Iran's nuclear material. It's talked about potentially seizing Kharg island, deploying another 2500 Marines to the region. It seems like either to take Carg island or to seize the nuclear material, you would need ground. Ground forces, ground troops. Are we getting close to a war, do you think, Tommy, that involves ground troops.

[Tommy Vietor]

If we take Carg island, they have to have a general who's from Boston and has a really accent. We got Kag, we got Carg Island. That's beside the point that you were asking about. I find it very hard to believe that the US And Israel, especially the Israelis, would not do something to the uranium stockpile out of Iran. And I imagine that Trump would prefer the Israelis take the lead on that operation. But I think it would be a major operation that would probably involve both of us because we're probably talking about two different nuclear sites. I've seen experts estimate that you need about a thousand personnel to secure and conduct the operation. At each, you'd need like a commando team that's trained in digging up and handling nuclear materials themselves to do the actual removal. You would need maybe like an excavator or other earth moving material, sort of machines to get at the stuff because it's under rubble, because we bombed it. And then you need like a bunch of troops to secure a perimeter. You'd need to provide defense against missiles and drones. You would need either to seize a Runway or to create a Runway to get the shit in and out. And then you probably have people like in theater for a considerable amount of time. This wouldn't be Venezuela like swoop in, swoop out. It would probably be boots on the ground for a while. So that is very, very dangerous. I think Carg island is prob. Probably a little simpler in the short term. Just like to seize the thing, but then you're just sitting there 15 miles away from the Iranian shore and can get fired at also.

[Jon Favreau]

How long are you occupying Carg Island?

[Tommy Vietor]

What's the goal? Is the goal just to cut off all oil and gas revenue in the short term? Is it to just own their oil and gas in the long term? I don't really know. So I imagine like there's a. I think there's like a hundred ninety nine chance that Netanyahu does something to get the HEU out now, letting the Israelis do it alone.

[Jon Favreau]

He use the highly, the highly enriched

[Tommy Vietor]

uranium Sorry, but what happens if, you know, an Israeli commando is captured or taken down? Like, there's ways this gets more complicated.

[Jon Favreau]

So I do think this shouldn't be a problem if. Whether Israel or the US Leads, because according to Trump, we've killed all the Iranian leaders anyway. So what do you think's going on there, too? They keep saying the administration and Trump, like, insinuating that maybe the new Ayatollah is injured, that he might be dead. They don't even. Trump's like, I don't even know who we would negotiate with. There's no leaders there anymore. Like, it doesn't seem like that's exactly on the level. But yeah, it's weird.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, they're trying to kind of run him down and suggest weakness, but I don't know what. To what end. And they clearly leaked this suggestion that the new supreme leader is gay to the New York Post because they were then tweeting about it and, like, kind of taking the victory lap on the story. But, like, again, what's. What's the point of this? So we want a diplomacy and have an off ramp.

[Jon Favreau]

It's really hard to know who's telling the truth because, like, you obviously know you expect the Iranians to lie because it's like a regime that might lie. But also everything the Trump administration says. There was also this Axio story that, like, there'd been a. There's a diplomatic channel now between Wyckoff and the Iranians that is opened. And then the Iranians were like, no, that's a complete lie. What are you talking about? And the administration's like, no, they're lying. They're complete liars. And you're like, I don't know.

[Tommy Vietor]

Who knows?

[Jon Lovett]

It's funny to think that. That Kamala Harris and the Trump administration agree that. That neither country is ready for a gay leader. Do you think? I. Sort of.

[Donald Trump]

But.

[Jon Favreau]

But.

[Jon Lovett]

But even though that's. But that. I'm sorry, that's not what she was saying. Even though it is what the words meant, but it's not what she was saying.

[Jon Favreau]

Apparently Iran may be ready.

[Jon Lovett]

Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Do they.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah. That. That Iran. Ayatollah Buttigieg. So I. I'm realizing that I'm gonna have to. Moving the honeymoon from straight of Hormuz to Kharg island was probably a mistake anyway.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Who knows? They're all liars. It's a real problem.

[Jon Favreau]

I also saw administration officials told Axios that US Involvement could continue until September. Yeah, that is insane.

[Tommy Vietor]

They don't know Trump talks about this war. Like, he can turn it off and on. The Iranians have a say. The Israelis have a say.

[Jon Lovett]

There are 50,000 troops in the region, American troops in the region right now, all of whom are in some way exposed, some of whom have been killed. Like, it's just, it's not up to him.

[Jon Favreau]

They also, you know, they're like, well, maybe in a week or two we can get the Navy can start escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Like that doesn't seem like an easy mission either.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, that feels very expensive and time consuming and maybe feasible, but they're also the stories about the US Navy escorting ships through the strait say they'll start after the end of hostilities. So yeah, what's the point?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, when is the how are the hostilities ending?

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

so the war isn't getting any more popular here in America. And one way you can tell without even looking at a poll is by this well timed and very courageous leak to Politico sourced to two senior Trump officials, one of whom texted that in the lead up to striking Iran, Vice President J.D. vance made his opposition known, is, quote, skeptical, quote, worried about success and, quote, just opposes the war. Vance was asked about this while standing next to Trump in the Oval on Monday. Here's what he said.

[Jon Lovett]

Are you completely on board with the current war in Iran?

[Jon Favreau]

I know what you're trying to do, Phil. You're trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between me and the President. What the President said consistently going back to 2015, and I agreed with him, is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.

[Jon Lovett]

So there's no hesitation, given your past statements with the current operation.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, I think one big difference, Phil,

[Tommy Vietor]

is that we have a smart president

[Jon Favreau]

Whereas in the past we've had dumb

[Tommy Vietor]

presidents and I trust President Trump to

[Jon Favreau]

get the job done. So that should do it, huh?

[Jon Lovett]

It's too cute by half, I would say. From JD Vance.

[Jon Favreau]

Agreed.

[Jon Lovett]

Too cute by half. And there's been, you know, a series of stories about people gunning for Rubio, the real kind of behind the scenes jockeying people who want to draft Rubio. And I don't know how plausible that really is. But what I take all of it to mean is just discomfort with Vance and the way Vance is just such a kind of, like, sleazy and like, sleazy operator. Trump is a sleazy operator, but not in a way that you like him at the end of it, the way the others do. And so they look to Rubio as an alternative just because, like, Vance is just so full of shit.

[Tommy Vietor]

First of all, Phil knows what he did there. Phil knows what he did. You know, Phil was being pretty divisive. Like, every time Vance gets this question, he has to whine and cry about the question itself. And the questioner, he's like, I know you're, I know you're trying to do here, blah, blah. It's like, first of all, that was not convincing. Like, I don't, like, you could watch Trump's face. I don't think it convinced Trump in that moment that, that Vance wasn't trying to put some distance between himself and the policy. The idea that Vance thinks he can run away from a policy this consequential when he's the Vice President is insane to me. Maybe he thinks he can position himself in 2028 as being less hawkish than Marco Rubio, but, like, I don't know, getting any love from the isolationist wing of the party.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Rubio has just as much stink on him, if not more than J.D. vance. For this war. For any foreign policy adventure, Rubio is the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State. He's been one of the public faces, one of the few public faces.

[Jon Lovett]

That's what I'm saying.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think you could, maybe JD could argue that Rubio is more hawkish than he is.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, I thought you were saying. Sorry, no, no. And then you were saying that maybe they turned to Rubio.

[Jon Lovett]

I think only. Only not because of any kind of policy difference, but because just they don't like J.D. vance. He's just not a likable guy. He's just like, so full of shit. They want, like, Rubio is smart enough, to your point to know that there's no way to run away from being tied to this. He's embracing it fully because it's his job to embrace it. I think he's more prone to being, like, he has a sort of neocon instincts more than Vance does. But, like, he knows he's got to own this, so he's owning it 100%. The idea that, you know, JD Vance is going to be reluctantly the face of the war in Iran, like, it doesn't make him, like, to use an old joke, it doesn't make him a better person. It just makes him a worse prostitute,

[Tommy Vietor]

you know, so the broader, like the, the broader setup here is there's all these stories that Trump is polling everyone about who they like better. Is it Marco or is it JD and it's like he did it to a bunch of donors down in Mar? A Lago, and I think all the donors of Mar A Lago preferred Rubio. And maybe that's because they're in Florida, maybe it's because the rich guys, Maybe it's because J.D. van's a prick, maybe it's because Rubio's been around longer. But, yeah, I think they're both covered in the stink of this war. And this opens up a real, like, isolationist wing in the Republican primary next time that could be filled by someone like a Tucker Carlson or like, I don't know, Rand Paul suggesting he might run.

[Jon Favreau]

The Tucker thing seems to me the most plausible result of this. Right? Because you. So let's say the war ends next week or a couple weeks, right? And, you know, it is obviously destabilizing for quite a long time, but, like, there isn't any giant catastrophe with a ton of US Casualties and we're not there for like a year or whatever else, then J.D. vance thinks, okay, well, when it comes time for the primary, it's not really gonna get brought up that much anyway. And maybe if I get asked about it, I can say, well, I think everyone knows for sure back then I got some shit for it that I wasn't exactly for the war, and then that's fine. But in any scenario where this is still a problem or where there are, like, real consequences for this war, I think that, like, there is no way that J.D. vance or Marco Rubio are ever going to be able to run away from this. And it's. And all the energy, even if. Even if some donors like Rubio and some of the party establishment decides to like Rubio, which you could see whatever's left of the establishment or Vance, all the energy in a Republican primary is going to be for these, the Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, anti war, calling themselves America First, Marjorie Taylor Greene, whatever it is that side of the party that's gonna have the energy in a primary and like JD Vance is gonna get killed and so is Rubio.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I don't even if, look, let's hope this is not something that is sort of dominating the news, whatever a year from now. I still think this has such a big, like, I don't know how these, like how J.D. vance is gonna go around saying he's not for wars in the Middle east after this. Because they did. They ran that. That was exactly what they said. And now we're in the mid. I think it's a genuine conviction on the part of a lot of the, not just like the Megyn Kelly's of the world, but the podcast. Like, like the, like the kind of big influencers, like a lot of voices on the right and they're just not going to forget this. It's not going to be able to walk back.

[Jon Favreau]

And by the way, political opportunity is

[Jon Lovett]

just so great and JD Vance is not going to be able to walk it. Like, Donald Trump is going to be around. You think J.D. vance is able to successfully run away from Donald Trump? I find that hard to believe.

[Jon Favreau]

I do wonder there, like, the way that Trump is. Trump is like, seemed completely fine there. Didn't seem perturbed. Like, I wonder if Trump was like, well, I made the decision, if you need it for politics, to just. I wonder if Trump is okay with that, is what I was wondering. Like, there's a possibility that.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's hard to tell. I can't tell either. I was trying to watch his face and it was not clear to me whether he was annoyed or not. I mean, as this thing goes, continues and gets worse, I'm sure he'll get increasingly angry at everyone around him. But if I ran against him, I would say, J.D. you can tell us now that you were opposed to this war, but when the chips were down, you were feckless and then you were silent.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Were you either? Were you, were you, did you agree with it or were you just weak and ineffective inside of the administration? And by the way, like, Rand Paul is one thing. If it is someone like Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is going to rip him to pieces because he's not going to be able on a debate stage to get away with the kind of hemming and hawing that he's doing in this room. Definitely over and over again. Were you for it or not? Were you against it or not.

[Jon Favreau]

Now, the smart politics for Trump would be to let J.D. vance, like, have that other position. You know, I mean, honestly, even what, Even what Trump did there was better to JD Vance than what fucking Joe Biden did to Kamala Harris on Gaza. Right.

[Jon Lovett]

And on.

[Jon Favreau]

According to all the reporting.

[Tommy Vietor]

Privately. Yes, privately telling her no, daylight certainly wasn't great.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I'm saying. Like, she could have staked out a position where she voiced her honest criticisms about Gaza. And now we've seen from all the reporting that he didn't want her to do even that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Which just to be clear, was both, you know, that Kamala had agency there too, so.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

Joe Biden didn't make Kamala.

[Jon Favreau]

No, that is.

[Jon Lovett]

That's not true.

[Jon Favreau]

It's interesting. It was interesting to me that Trump has, like, let this go and not had a big problem with it.

[Jon Lovett]

I have the same thought, which is that it is. Are we going to be in a situation where Donald Trump gives more space to his VP to operate than Joe Biden did? I think it's possible.

[Jon Favreau]

So the political blowback over the war is clearly getting to Trump. On Sunday night, he falsely accused US Media outlets of working with Iran to amplify fake news about Iran and said that those outlets, quote, should be brought up on charges of treason. This was after FCC chair Brendan Carr, who was with Trump at Mar A Lago over the weekend, threatened to cancel television broadcasters licenses over their war coverage. Trump then spent his flight home to D.C. attacking reporters for asking even the most basic questions about Iran. Let's listen.

[Tommy Vietor]

We are nowhere near such a ground trip.

[Donald Trump]

I don't talk to people like you about that. I mean, why would I tell you I'm sending or not sending? I don't talk about military strategy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Who would talk about.

[Donald Trump]

I mean, who would answer a question like, it's pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false, that it's a very dangerous thing. And I think it's. I think they could be a serious challenge. I didn't say it. I think it's maybe the most corrupt news organizations. I think that they're. I don't want anyone from any.

[Jon Lovett]

Testy.

[Jon Favreau]

So, I mean, it's barely in the news today, but, you know, it does seem like the president threatening to shut down media outlets and charge them with treason. Kind of a big deal.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it seems bad.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, we sort of. He does that. So it doesn't lead. No, but Trump does that. He calls people. He's like treasonous and says he's going to bring them up on charges. I think the car stuff is more important because the threat itself is enough to try to intimidate people into kind of hesitating. Right. Like he's. Even if he never acts on it. Right. And people knowing that the FCC chair is like watching this closely, like maybe just like worry about a headline a little bit more that seems to be antagonistic to the administration. I think it's really dangerous. Even Brendan Kara said that the government shouldn't censor speech. It doesn't like that the FCC does not have a roving mandate to release the speech to police speech in the name of the public interest. And like the idea that he has now made himself the kind of assignment editor and national ombudsman of the media while kind of posting AI AI meme slop from the White House like that to me is really dangerous and more dangerous than Trump being in a bad mood because his war is going poorly and he doesn't like the coverage because Brendan Carr is thinking about this all day, every day.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I just think it's worth remembering how bad the media coverage was in the run up to the Iraq war and how anti war voices were censored. Because thinking back to then, like the structural setup was, for example, NBC is owned by ge, which is like one of the biggest contractors of the Pentagon. Then you have reporters embedded with the US Military and their networks booking like current and former military guests. So you're constantly getting the pro military perspective from that little silo. Fox News is branding anyone who opposes the war as anti American. But even MSNBC was canceling their number one show with Phil Donahue because there was, they were worried he was too anti war. Then you have Judy Miller at the New York Times laundering intelligence for the Bush administration. And it's like the, a bad setup.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's very easy to be pro war. It's very hard to be against these wars. And the natural instinct is to be patriotic. And there's limitations and coverage that come from logistics and the nature of the Pentagon and how these things work. So you don't need to have Brendan Carr running around for the, the media to be tilted in a pro war way already. But adding that on top of it, I think is a really big deal in a pretty dangerous development and a sign that he's really flailing and he knows things are going badly.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, it's also worth pointing out how absurd the complaints are with, with the, the coverage here, which is like, first of all what Trump was talking about is that there was like an image of, you know, Iranians celebrating the new Supreme Leader in the streets. And it turned out that it was AI and it wasn't that many people. No, like, that was a. I don't even remember. Like, there's not a lot of US Media outlets that were making that a huge thing.

[Tommy Vietor]

He famously cares about accurate crackers.

[Jon Favreau]

I was gonna say, like, that was. That's that. So that's his complaint. The other. The real complaints are that the media is what reporting, as Pete Hegseth said the other week, that it's front page news that Americans died in a war. That's the complaint now. Yeah, we're talking about American deaths in war, and we're asking things like, hey, how long's the war gonna ask? And are you gonna send men and women into Iran on the ground and risk their lives? Just like, basic questions like that.

[Jon Lovett]

And he was angry about a headline about a, I believe, Wall Street. Wall Street Journal story about a number of planes that were damaged by an Iranian bomb and how damaged they were. He's like sort of dancing on the head of a pin. Hegseth, on the end of last week, said in sort of his petulant, childish way was like, I can't wait for David Ellison to take over cnn. Like, they're all just petulant. Like, with Donald Trump in that mom really is saying is, you're also fucking negative. You're asking me about all. You're just being negative. You're supposed to have negative. You're not talking about all the good stuff we're doing. You're bringing up all the stuff that I. That is both terrible, but also wounds my ego. The fact that Americans have died. That's an insult to me because it makes me look bad because I am the one who caused those Americans to die. Which he did. Right. By launching this war. He invited what were going to be a response, and now Americans are dead because of it. He doesn't like to be confronted with that. That's what. That's what this is really about.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I think it's also worth pointing out that, like, Brendan Carr's threat is completely empty. I mean, he can try, but, like, from a legal standpoint, first of all, he only has oversight over broadcast licenses for local television networks. And, you know, Brian Stelter and some others looked into this. Like you.

[Tommy Vietor]

You.

[Jon Favreau]

You start to try to threaten to take away a local broadcaster's broadcasting license because of what? Inaccurate. You know, just made up inaccurate coverage, which he can't cite. It's just not gon. Now he can still threaten them. And as we saw with the Kimmel thing, like you threaten the local broadcasters and then maybe you get the parent companies like the ABCs and NBC's to worry a little bit. But like it's, the whole thing is just like crazy fudgeing bluster, but it's meant to intimidate, you know, and it's like, and I think that's the Trump treason thing is too, because like, yeah, Trump's not going to bring them up on charges of treason. But like, you know, the DOJ has been charging people left and right or trying to charge people left and right and he also has sued a bunch of people personally.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I, but like it is, I think it's more than bluster. Like Trump is threatening people, he's threatening people with DOJ prosecution. But then they kind of, you know, we just saw that the, that the prosecution against the Fed chair got thrown out by a judge. Like they've running into the sort of the brute incompetence of his doj. Like Brendan Carr can, can tie things up. He can get all the affiliates to be worried, get the affiliates starting to be worried that the parent company is going to cause a problem. Like this can be like, we saw that with Kimmel, but like we can. He has a lot of just the threat I think is really dangerous. And yes, obviously you don't need to be like a constitutional scholar to know that the FCC can't decide what the news is on behalf of these organizations. But that doesn't mean he can't do a lot of damage and get the network lawyers to become a little bit less permissive. And then all of a sudden they have had an impact on what we're seeing without us ever even knowing it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. My only argument is that it's not that it's just bluster, it's that Brendan Carr's threats and Donald Trump's threats are the same level of dangerous. Because like, I think that legally Brendan Carr doesn't have as much power as he thinks he is, but the threat from Carr and the threat from Trump, the goal is intimidation and, you know, it probably can work. So Trump isn't just targeting mainstream outlets over their Iran coverage. He's pissed at Trump friendly pundits too. One of his deranged Sunday night posts was a lengthy defense of right wing warmonger Mark Levin against the right wing pundits who criticized him over Iran, like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens. Trump called Levin's critics, quote, jealous and angry human beings who, quote, are not MAGA and, quote, will quickly fall by the wayside. The feud heated up over the weekend when Kelly hit back at Levin, calling her evil and diabolical. And so Kelly tweeted back at Levin, quote, I'm sorry you have a micro penis, but don't drag the rest of us into your drama. Very importantly, Marjorie Taylor Greene jumped in to say that, quote, MAGA has been destroyed by micropenis. Mark Levin, is she right?

[Jon Lovett]

So where did micropenis come in? Like, it's just a floating question. Yeah, right. Well, we know where it, you know, we know where it ends, we just don't know where it begins.

[Jon Favreau]

I feel like the whole feud's been inching towards that for a while now.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, right, right. I mean, obviously we're not gonna dive too deep into. But Megyn Kelly, just, just as Mark Levin has a micro penis, not a

[Jon Favreau]

grower or a shower. Yes. There's a long.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just the tip of a much smaller iceberg.

[Jon Lovett]

Right, right. No, I know. And it is, and it's just creating a lot of surprising amount of motion in the ocean. Very little friction, though.

[Jon Favreau]

She did, she explained, she tried to explain it in a lengthy video.

[Jon Lovett]

You watched that whole video?

[Jon Favreau]

I did too. I did as well.

[Jon Lovett]

I started and I got out.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, it's great. Did you want, you want to.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, the short version, the tldr is Megyn Kelly was mean to Mark Levin.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, there is no longer.

[Tommy Vietor]

So Levin called Daddy Trump to send a tweet defending him against the mean woman who is not nice to him was Megyn Kelly. I think this, this fight dates back to the last build up to the Iran war, if we want to get into that. I mean, like, Levin is very hawkish. He's in favor of bombing Iran. He's very favor of Israel and Netanyahu in particular. Mark Levin. Do you guys know that Mark Levin went and sat in the audience at Netanyahu's trial in Israel? Like, that's how much of a buddy is. And then Tucker Carlson at the time, this is last June or the run up to the June war, was very against the war. Also not a big fan of Israel. Also not a fan of Netanyahu. He converged into anti Semitism. And then so the two started going to war over this policy. And then Charlie Kirk gets dragged in, Megyn Kelly gets dragged in. You sprinkle in like a tablespoon of Candace Owens. You got a dash of Ben Shapiro. You know, like had a little bit of Nick Fuentes. And now this is just a full on MAGA media war. And there's some polling that shows that MAGA is for whatever Trump is for. And I think that is generally true. But Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, they are attuned to their audiences and they know what is getting downloads and attention and they watch the data. So I don't think they go down this path that they didn't feel like there was an audience for it. And there's also polling that shows that US view source Israel have changed dramatically since 2023, dramatically, including among Republicans. Nine point shift in favorability among Republicans. I think there's things happening under the surface. So Trump might be maga and that might be the case for now, but I think this is a fight for the future of maga and there are major shifts happening under the surface. Some of it is foreign policy like we Talked about with J.D. vance, some of it is support for Israel, but we get to enjoy the fruits of it in the form of a micro penis.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Under the surface and you know, under, under Mark Levin's pants, it's really, it's

[Jon Lovett]

really, it's actually like really been popping off. But the.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, your question. Love it though. Basically she says, so he like tweeted about her a hundred times and said all these vile shit about her. And she said like, you know, I, I sent a few brush back tweets as she is want to do. And then she said, you know, and I just, then I just decided to just reveal that he has a micro penis. Not that she's, not that I've seen it myself, but clearly we've all been exposed to it because someone who acts that hawkish and tries to overcompensate clearly has a micro penis. Like that's just something that, you know.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. She said, thankfully I've never had to look at it firsthand, but you can just tell Then she goes, when they go low, we go micro penis. And then she said, so obviously Trump's truth social post was drafted by Levin and Levin's post thanking the President is equally long. It was the only thing that is.

[Jon Lovett]

That's good. They go low, we go small. That's good.

[Jon Favreau]

That would have been.

[Jon Lovett]

And I know and like Ben Shapiro has been basically challenging Megyn Kelly and others to like denounce Candace Owens, which I don't think she has done.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Or at least not to his satisfaction. And so like there is like this, it's a real like.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

And it is, I always say, like nothing is More upsetting to a right wing figure than to be treated like a Democrat. It's like the most horrible. Like they can't understand what's like, why are you talking this way about me? I'm not one of those people. You're not supposed to talk this way. And like, they can't. It's a shocking experience.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's amazing.

[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of Tucker, did you guys see that? He said he thinks that the administration might charge him with under a Farah violation, acting as an agent of a foreign power for talking to people in Iran before the war, which he claims they knew he was doing because the CIA read his texts.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. So I didn't watch the whole episode Tucker did on this. He did like a five minute clip that I watched. It is certainly possible, if not quite likely that if Tucker was emailing with some Iranian officials that gets picked up by the NSA or somebody and maybe that can get reviewed. I find it very unlikely that the government would then tell him that or that he would have committed a crime in the process. Like, I don't get how that's a fair violation or any kind of violation.

[Jon Lovett]

And there's been some other anonymous sources batting it down saying, no, no, no one's going to charge Tucker, which is obviously, you know, I don't want to see Tucker Carlson charged with a crime for the, for, for, for simply talking to people and doing journalism. I don't want that to happen.

[Jon Favreau]

Candace Owens said that if it happens, we ride at dawn. But where, so I guess are we joining that as well?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

First Amendment.

[Tommy Vietor]

Protect crazy town. Yeah. I think the Ben Shapiro feud with Megyn Kelly is that Ben wants Megan to denounce Candice for saying that Erica Kirk got Charlie Kirk killed.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

And she won't.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, the Candace stuff on that is

[Tommy Vietor]

getting real bleak over there.

[Jon Favreau]

She's a disturbed individual.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did?

[Jon Lovett]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

On Carvana.

[Jon Lovett]

Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes.

[Tommy Vietor]

Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.

[Jon Favreau]

You don't say.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow.

[Tommy Vietor]

Talk about fast.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow. Way to go. So, about that picture frame.

[Tommy Vietor]

Ah, forget about it.

[Jon Lovett]

Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested. Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Hey, Sal.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hank.

[Jon Lovett]

What's going on?

[Tommy Vietor]

We haven't worked a case in years.

[Jon Lovett]

I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Think something's up?

[Jon Lovett]

You tell me.

[Tommy Vietor]

They got thousands of options, found a

[Jon Lovett]

great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day.

[Tommy Vietor]

It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.

[Jon Favreau]

Believe it or not, since it involves Trump. There's also a corruption angle to the Iran story last week, and we heard some of this in the clip. A PAC affiliated with Trump called Never Surrender Inc. Sent out a fundraising email featuring a photo of the President in front of a flag draped coffin at the dignified transfer of six soldiers who were killed during the war's first week. The email presented readers with the opportunity to sign up for a quote, national security briefing membership, which for the price of a donation, would send them the President's personal, private, quote, national security briefings and unfiltered updates on the threats facing America. That news came after the New York Times reported that Jared Kushner, the President's second choice, son in law and one of the United States lead negotiators in the Middle east, has been asking governments in the region to fund his private investment firm. Isn't that nice? Kushner's firm reportedly recently met with Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which already contributed 2 billion to the fund at the beginning of the Trump administration and is planning to seek funding from the sovereign wealth fund's of the UAE and Qatar where do you guys all want to start? Fundraising for your pack off of the death of American soldiers or fundraising for your investment fund off of your alleged role as the diplomat tasked with ending two wars? What's worse, what do you think?

[Jon Lovett]

Really? One of the most disgusting images I think I've ever seen. Shocking, actually. Shocking. He's there in that white hat. There's a literal coffin in the image. They're using the coffin of a dead service member to raise money. Unconscionable in any other era. Would be a massive, ongoing scandal. If the President were asked about it, he would immediately say it was a terrible mistake, that the person who was responsible would be fired. It would still be a big scandal. There would be apologies, there'd be across the board condemnation from Democrats and Republicans. But this is just a blip because it's Donald Trump. Trump, Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I, I, it, I had the same reaction. I mean, it was, it was genuinely shocking how tasteless it was, but also how politically stupid it was. I mean, I can't fire that person. That's criminally stupid. And, and by the way, as this is happening, there's, there are GoFundMes going around for the families of these dead service members that I don't think Donald Trump is supporting. So, yeah, it's, yeah, shocking.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyone want to tee off on Jared?

[Jon Lovett]

I'm going to take the over on it, all right. Because Jared Kushner and Witkoff and maybe the other bozo, real sons potentially making money on this is the only way I can see to war in Iran ending with the most recent living Ayatollah in the Oval Office with Trump talking about how beautiful the Strait of Hormuz is and what a beautiful property it's gonna be. And actually, I didn't know till Jared showed me how beautiful it is. It's a beautiful place. All I think about is, remember we were talking about the mines. Always all about the mines. The min. To be beautiful, to be fantastic place. And we're so grateful to the new Ayatollah for recognizing Israel. It's going to be a beautiful property.

[Jon Favreau]

New head of the Palestinian Authority will be there, too, to talk about all the new high rises in Gaza.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, that's Wyckoff, so that makes sense. So the younger. So, yeah, that, that to me, I'm going to take the over on that one. I think the corruption is good.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. So Jared left the administration, started this investment fund, and he raised a bunch of money from the Saudis, billions from the Saudis, a bunch of money from the Qataris and the Emiratis. And that, to me, felt like kickbacks for services already rendered. And there was all these reporting at the time that the professionals at these sovereign wealth funds did not want to invest with Jared, but they were overruled by MBS and other political actors. Jared then went into the wilderness for a while. Now he's back. He's doing negotiations with the Russians, with Ukraine. He's doing stuff in Gaza. Now he's part of the Iran talks. And he said that he would not be making any money off the board of peace. He would not be raising money from the Gulf countries that he's working with. Of course, that was a lie to avoid.

[Jon Favreau]

To avoid conflicts. He said that, too. Yeah, use the words.

[Tommy Vietor]

And now he's trying to get more money for. For, I guess, for future favors. Also, at the same time, I mean, there's all this reporting that the Russians are providing intelligence to the Iranians to help them kill US Service members. I saw that the guy who runs the Russian sovereign wealth fund was back down in Miami for meetings with Jared and Wyckoff, presumably at one of their homes.

[Jon Lovett]

Also, we're removing. We're removing sanctions on the oil, which is going to give them more monies. We're ostensibly funding now both sides of this conflict, not only. And also strengthening Russia and Ukraine at the same time.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yep. And The Emiratis bought 50%, or 49, of the crypto company that the Trump family started. So the corruption in the rot is just so deep that I almost wasn't surprised by Jared raising this money. But it's just, it. It's so frustrating because this man, he doesn't have a government job. He has no official role. There's no oversight, there's no nothing.

[Jon Favreau]

But he's, like, out there briefing reporters as a senior administration official, even though he's supposed to not be having an actual role in the government. Except his role is apparently to cosplay, making peace, and then raising a bunch of money for his fund. Good for Jared.

[Jon Lovett]

Over the weekend, I just was hearing from. From different people, and I have friends with family in Iran, and they were talking about how they just are waiting for regular updates when the member of their family can get Wi fi just to say that he's safe. Right. Like, that's what they're living in between. Thankfully, some members of the family got out before, but now they're always really nervous. They hope everything's okay, and they just wait for when the Internet's working to get a regular update. And then at the same time I was hearing from family, friends about an elderly relative in Israel who is infirmed. And so it is difficult for her to get in and out of shelters when there are bomb sirens that are going off. And that's happening all the time. And it's just really difficult. It's hard on the health. And you just, like, the real world consequences of this are just nowhere for these people. Like, there's the actual day to day, the sheer scale of what they've unleashed, right? The amount of people impacted by this, the number of people who are getting killed and whose lives have been upended, like the chaos they've unleashed. It just feels so abstract to them, even now, two weeks into it for, for Kushner, obviously, for Wyckoff, but for Trump, which is why when he's asked about the dead service members or anything like that, he's like, almost angry to be confronted by the actual reality of what he's done, because he wants to only live in the fun story version that he's telling himself. But as you know, Orwell had said, as famously quoted by Christy fucking Gnome, like, war is the one thing that intercedes on an authoritarian, right? The reality of a war, you can't pretend it's not happening. And that's what's happening.

[Tommy Vietor]

And the true, the Pentagon's been hiding, the true casualty count, we don't really know. But I saw today the Washington Post, I think, reported that 200 service members have been wounded as well. So there's a lot of people getting hurt. And also, like, add to your list of real human beings impacted by this war, the 800,000 people who have been evacuated from their homes in Lebanon because the Israelis are basically telling everyone who lives within, like, 25 miles of the border that they have to leave.

[Jon Favreau]

You see, the Israelis announced today, too, that they're not allowed back.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think what's happening here, I think this is going to go. I think what's happening in Lebanon is going to go on a lot longer than what's happening in Iran, and that it's going to end with Israel trying to permanently occupy a lot of Lebanese territory.

[Jon Favreau]

Sounds like they want to. If they're not going to let 800,000 people return to their homes. And either they're another just evacuated, earned it in Gaza.

[Tommy Vietor]

And so now they're evacuating, like, major swaths of Beirut, which is a huge

[Jon Lovett]

city, just using the opportunity of the conflict to pursue their larger purposes in the region, which Trump is totally fine with and Huckabee is totally fine with. There's no breaks.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Hezbollah, obviously terrible organization, kills indiscriminately, kills Israelis, kills Druze, kills Christians and in Lebanon as well. But yeah, I mean, the idea that it's strategically smart to undertake this massive operation and as you're in the midst of a war with Iran, it feels like a bad idea. And it's just more of a cynical way to use everyone being distracted to do things you always wanted to do.

[Jon Favreau]

So, speaking of corruption, the Times also published a piece over the weekend about the stock trading habits of Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, Trump's pick to replace Kristi Noem at dhs. Mullen reportedly bought shares in Chevron, the only US Oil supplier with an active operation in Venezuela, five days before the United States attacked the country and later vowed to take over oil operations. According to the Times. Mullen. Mullen has become quite the trader, reporting at least 130 trades last year and outperforming the market by 8%. Sure, it's just a coincidence after selling his company. This is from the Time story too. After selling his company in 2021, Mullen reported fewer than 30 stock trades in 2022. In 2023, his first year as a senator, that jumped to 100. So suddenly he just is trading a lot of stock these days. And you know, his assets originally when he got to the Senate were between 2.8 and $9 million. When he first got to the House, now it's between 29 million and $97 million.

[Tommy Vietor]

Jesus.

[Jon Favreau]

Guess he did some good trading, huh?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, that's good work, dude.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you guys think about Mark Wayne Mullen's. He's got a confirmation hearing this Thursday. It is very tempting, I imagine for Democrats to focus on this story in the hearing. But what do you guys think?

[Tommy Vietor]

Divide and conquer. I mean, this should be a part of it. Someone should, should dig in on this because Donald Trump in the State of the Union, one of his biggest applause lines was banning stock trading. And he wants to make it all about Pelosi and her preventing that from happening. And frankly, Pelosi is not good on this issue. And it's, it really sucks because it makes Democrats look bad. But members of Congress should not be allowed to buy and sell individual stocks. It is an absolute no brainer that they should have their assets in a blind trust or something. They should not be buying and selling crypto. They shouldn't be selling futures or using polymarket or Kalshi the bet on events. I mean, like it is, I will never believe it's A coincidence. This guy bought a bunch of Chevron stock five days before we toppled the dictator in Venezuela and installed a much more oil friendly dictator in Venezuela.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

It was a third party. It was a third party.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, sure.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, which, and if you read that statement, there's definitely, like, even, even if you take the statement as being accurate, which I don't know that necessarily, you can. There's plenty of room inside of that statement for him to be doing whatever he wants. Yeah. They should not be trading individual stocks. None of us should be trading individual stocks because we're not stock traders. And the only reason it would make sense for members of Congress to be trading stock is because they have insider information. Even an example they were proud of. In the story there was a member of Congress who was on a board and was bragging about the company to everybody on the committee. So that's one of the reasons people were buying stock in that. What are we doing here?

[Tommy Vietor]

Chris Collins, Anyone?

[Jon Lovett]

Chris Collins. And well, he went to jail with partition by Trump for. Not for that. I know. He goes to jail for. Charged with insider trading for insider trading for nothing. Not the one he was most proud of.

[Tommy Vietor]

And Trump pardoned him.

[Jon Lovett]

And Trump pardoned him because he doesn't believe in insider trading. He thinks that's just good trading. And we also have all, by the way, God only knows what these people are doing on the betting markets, which we don't have any insight into where they're trading with insider information. Because the only way it makes sense is because these trades on Kalshi and Polymarket are because of insider information. So of course it should be banned. And by the way, the disclosure rules should be better. Why on earth do we have ridiculous ranges where we find out how much money they have? Between 9 and 90 million. Like that is a, that is a ridiculous space set up by members of Congress to make it kind of confusing how much money they have and how much money they've made. We should have more disclosure for them more frequently. Like there's a whole bunch of reforms that would make this less of an issue. Bod Save America is brought to you by Haya. Some children's vitamins on the market today contain up to 7 grams of sugar per serving and are stuffed with artificial additives and petroleum based dyes. Haya took the opposite approach. Zero sugar, zero gummy additives, just clean nutrition. Working alongside pediatricians and nutrition scientists, Haya created a superpower chewable vitamin. The packs a blend of 12 organic fruits and vegetables plus 15 essential vitamins and Minerals into every dose. The ingredient list is clean, non gmo, vegan, dairy free, allergy free, gelatin free, nut free. They thought of everything designed for kids two and up, up. Haya ship straight to your door. You get this awesome reusable bottle with your first order and then they send refills every month. Tommy, you have children.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I was over at the Favros house the other day and Charlie had just solved Fermat's last theorem.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And it turns out the previous proof was wrong, so he really actually is the first one ever to solve it.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, that's great. I'm glad they finally cleared that up. What is. What is. I can't even remember what Fermat's list for me. What is this?

[Tommy Vietor]

B to the N plus B to

[Jon Lovett]

the N. Oh, oh, yes. Because obviously we all know A squared plus B squared equals C squared. But it turns out there are no integers for which anything above 2 can be solved. But the question is, is that true?

[Tommy Vietor]

It wasn't an elegant proof until Charlie started taking high vitamins, which he loves. And I think the Pharaohs are struggling to get him to eat those green vegetables. But Haya's Kids Daily Greens plus Superfood is a total game changer for that too. It's basically chocolate milk stuffed with veggies. It's a greens powder that's packed with 55 whole food source ingredients. Just one scoop with milk or milk alternative and watch them actually enjoy something that's secretly fueling their growing bodies.

[Jon Lovett]

I really would like Charlie Favreau to turn his his sights on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, because I think that thing's ready to go. I think you're ready. That's. I'm excited for that. Let's challenge the Copenhagen interpretation. We've worked out a special deal for HI for their best selling children's vitamin. Receive 50 up. Your first order to claim this deal, you must go to hiahealth.com crooked. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to h I y a h e l dash.com crooked and get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.

[Jon Favreau]

So one kind of fun, kind of pathetic story before we go. You may have noticed the recent trend of Trump just giving random interviews to any reporter who calls him. Turns out there's a reason everyone now has access to the President's personal cell phone number. The Atlantic reported over the weekend, and then Semaphore followed up as well, that Trump's number has become the the biggest open secret in Washington, with journalists openly trading it among themselves. So many now have access to it and have been using it to regularly call the president that White House advisors have stopped keeping track of who's calling. And according to one White House official, as many as, quote, 10 reporters will call in a matter of two hours. Trump, unsurprisingly, loves the attention. He apparently has gotten into the habit of keeping his phone screen face up during meetings to just watch the notifications roll in. Loves it. Trump aides have said that at the moment, they have no intention of changing the number and have no plan to stop more people from getting a hold of it. You guys have it yet?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Should we give him a call?

[Tommy Vietor]

I got it.

[Jon Favreau]

You got it?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I got it from a reporter.

[Jon Lovett]

Let's call him.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'll call him now.

[Jon Favreau]

Do we have a plan? What are we going to say?

[Tommy Vietor]

I was just going to call and say, Tom Vitor from Pod Save America calling on a recorded line. How are you?

[Jon Lovett]

Great.

[Tommy Vietor]

All right, let's do it.

[Jon Favreau]

Recorded line. Oh, that's important.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, West Palm beach number. Be so awkward when he calls me back after we're not recording.

[Jon Favreau]

You think he calls back? I don't think he.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, he just. He's just a receiver of calls.

[Jon Lovett]

This could be the last call.

[Tommy Vietor]

Didn't we prank Rudy Giuliani once?

[Jon Favreau]

Sean.

[Jon Lovett]

Sean Han. Boy. Boy, did he get the last laugh.

[Tommy Vietor]

Your name and number after the test. Sorry, guys, didn't deliver on that one.

[Jon Favreau]

You think he's checking his voicemails?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I'm sure what happened with me today was I sent two texts to people who I thought might have the number, and one of them gave them me the number and. Right. I mean, there's been a bunch of

[Jon Favreau]

news because of the story, how easy

[Tommy Vietor]

it is to get it.

[Jon Lovett]

And so maybe today was the last day, but now he's finally got to change his number. Like when everybody's emails were in that Sony hack.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, yes, because it sounds like there was one. Someone wrote a piece on the Atlantic piece on this, made it sound like. I think one reporter kind of figured this out early. It was like Garrett Hawk or somebody and got Trump's reaction to something about Biden. Really? Or dropping out? Biden dropping out really early on and had a scoop. And then every other reporter was like, oh, this dude is just taking calls

[Jon Favreau]

from press now also. I think maybe next time. Love it. Or I should try because we have 202 numbers. And so he probably sees 202 and says, oh, it's D.C. and you, you don't have a 202?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, I'm gonna let her rip.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, we'll try again.

[Jon Lovett]

We'll try again.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll try again. We'll try it once an episode.

[Jon Lovett]

Okay, great. I like that. I like that.

[Jon Favreau]

Just to see.

[Jon Lovett]

Remember when Biden would do an interview every six months?

[Jon Favreau]

Tell us what we should ask everyone. Send in your ideas, send in your questions, what to ask the president in case we get him on the horn,

[Jon Lovett]

get him on the blower.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what gives you hope? I have to. There's a whole story about three bucks. Yeah, right. How do I convince my relative who loves Trump to not vote for him anymore?

[Jon Lovett]

Where's the climate pod, you fucks?

[Jon Favreau]

So apparently, like CEOs and crypto bros are offering money for the number. This is in the story.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sure, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a couple other funny parts to it. Tyler, one of them says the administrator. So, like everyone's calling, you know, they're like not just the big outlets, but like the smaller outlets us now, you know. But then it says the administration officials say substack authors have started to call, forcing White House staff to look up names they don't recognize.

[Jon Lovett]

So funny.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, no, the substack.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, we didn't talk about this that today in. Twice it has two different press events. Today he made reference to a former president who he likes who said he was right to go in to Iran. And then he's asked and said, wish

[Jon Favreau]

I had done that.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he said, wish I had done that. And then he's asked by Ducey later that day, who are you referring to? Was it George W. Bush?

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Jon Lovett]

Was it Bill Clinton? I'm not saying. But you know, from these endless. From him being on the fucking phone all the time.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Well, I assume that Donald Trump probably called Bill Clinton to commiserate about being unfairly treated over Jeffrey Epstein.

[Jon Favreau]

100%.

[Tommy Vietor]

I feel like that's 99%.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, it's not Barack Obama I have a hard time believing because he also said he's like someone I actually like, but it wouldn't be good for their career. Well, he's like they don't have much of a career anywhere at this point.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, I mean, it's four form.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I'm saying.

[Jon Lovett]

So we think it's got to be.

[Jon Favreau]

Or, or, or as he often does, he's just lying.

[Jon Lovett]

He could be made up. But I mean, Clinton, Biden, Obama. I do not think Barack Obama is talking to Trump on the phone saying he Wished he had bombed Iran.

[Jon Favreau]

It's not.

[Jon Lovett]

Don't think it's Obama. So it's. I think it's Clinton, Biden or Bush. Doesn't make sense for it to be Bush. The way he's talking about it, probably not Biden. So you're really Clinton people.

[Jon Favreau]

The Clinton people are saying it wasn't him.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, which they may not know.

[Jon Lovett]

They may not know.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know if they're Jimmy Carter.

[Jon Lovett]

That's huge news.

[Tommy Vietor]

Was there a window where Jimmy C. Might have said, I wish I had gone into him? Not before this current operation. When did Jimmy Carter die? Was it, was it before, after midnight?

[Jon Favreau]

It was before midnight.

[Jon Lovett]

Do you think peace advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter in his hundredth year got on the phone with Donald Trump and said, God damn it, I wish I fucking bombed Iran.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, it did.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, it did fuck up his administration. It didn't fuck his whole presidency up. Hey, listen, put him on the list. Yeah, it's tough to be.

[Jon Favreau]

Tough to be. I bet he had a conversation with Bill Clinton where he mentions Iran. And in Trump's mind, Clinton said that. And in Clinton's, if you ask Clinton about the conversation, Clinton didn't say that. Well, that's what I would.

[Jon Lovett]

Two guys that are famously great at remembering what they said.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I'm getting at. That's what I'm getting at.

[Jon Lovett]

I think we have just a serious thing about how accessible Donald Trump is because this goes to what we're talking about earlier, which is like, oh, he's calling people treasonous. He is incredibly accessible. And I do not think a Democrat needs to be as accessible, accessible as this. But like, man, there is value to having Donald Trump, like in there every day communicating non stop and whoever we use is going to be somebody that, that represent us and learn like, man, how much space he has to move because he's out there time after time after time. Just sort of new layer of paint, you know, like, like just new layer of paint. New layer of paint. And yeah, sure, the windows don't open anymore because they're sealed shut from fucking paint. You can't access the outlets because there's so much paint. But man, do we think it is,

[Jon Favreau]

do we think it has. It's certainly better for freedom of the press, for sure. It's probably better for the public to have the president be more accessible. I think that the next Democratic president should obviously be much more accessible than Joe Biden was. Do you think it has been good for Trump to be this accessible in this administration with his sub 40, his

[Tommy Vietor]

40% approval rating, I think that he definitely gets a lot of flexibility and leeway for doing so many reps. I think he's figured out how to make scandals go away a little bit faster. Not all of them, like Epstein didn't go away. It was alive for months and months. It's still alive. I think in this instance of Iran, he's taken, like, 30 phone calls from reporters and given 30 different messages. So that part has not helped him.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I also think part of his ability to control the narrative is not his choice to be accessible, but his choice to kick out most reporters and not. Not sit down for challenging questions or interviews from many people.

[Jon Lovett]

But, see, I don't. Yes and no. He's still like, we just watched him get the four hardest questions he could have gotten in any interview. His approval rating is 40%. He's the worst president in American history. I think it does inure him to what the coverage would look like if the space were filled by a voice other than his. And I think in ways that are subtle, him being so accessible kind of takes the teeth out of a Democratic argument that he's like a raging authoritarian looking to squash the free press and destroy American democracy. I think being around him all the time, seeing him all the time, I think kind of blunts that a little bit, both for reporters and for Americans. I do. I think we don't know what it would look like for him to not be doing this much, but I don't think the fact that his approval rating is so low is because this doesn't work.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think that. I think there's a difference between accessibility and. I think that because of Donald Trump, the expectation now among both journalists and probably a lot of Americans is that their president will be constantly communicating about everything. That happens all the time. And so I think that if you do not do that as a president, you will get yourself into trouble. Like, I think his constant style of communication is probably helpful. I think, like, you know, being more accessible to reporters here and there is, like, I think for him, it might be okay because he's lying about everything anyway and he's screaming at them all anyway. But, like, I feel like the next Democratic president doing a million 30 interviews a day by phone is not going to redound to their benefit.

[Jon Lovett]

No, I would say, well, we don't. We just don't have a counterfactual, because it was, you know, Joe Biden was Joe Biden, and before that was Barack Obama, who had more of a traditional kind of relationship with the press. I think the answer is somewhere between, is not between Obama and Biden, it's between Trump and Obama as to how much access you'll want. And because I think the Obama style and someone who is as disciplined as Barack Obama, being more accessible and being a little bit looser is probably the answer.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, look, I think him freewheeling, it is probably a net benefit. That said, just like in the Iran context, again, he is a big shit right now because despite all this access, he did not prepare the country for what he was going to do. Right. He didn't use the State of the Union to lay out a plan. He hasn't really delivered a speech about what we're going to do in Iran. So I think it has harmed him in that he has come away as being unserious when he's doing like an event with the MLS soccer team about casualties in Iran and then telling, like, Lionel Messi that he looks hot. That literally happened, actually, was the guy next to Lionel Messi, he told him he was hot? I forgot his name, but yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And I just, I've noticed that the, the quality of the questions he gets is just lower because he doesn't face all the best reporters.

[Tommy Vietor]

A couple good, real reporters. And then you'll have like Lindell TV or whatever.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Like the way that Sean McCreesh asked that question, I think, last week about the school in Iran. Yeah. And just like the way that he. Not just the fact of the question, but the way that he phrased the question. You never hear that.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, I would just say I thought it was a great question. That is the hardest question I've ever seen a president ask. Like, I don't think you've ever seen a question phrase exactly like that. Because we've never had a president that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we've never. We never.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, that's the point. Because it's hard. That is the right, that is the right way to ask a question of someone so despicable as Donald Trump. But it's hard to find that balance. But to your point, like, what was that? Friday, Thursday. Right. Like, so we're just saying that, like, oh, it's been a weekend since he was in a full press conference where half the questions were real and serious and tough questions and half of them were full of shit, dumb questions from. Like, if you just took the serious questions he's getting, he is taking probably far more serious questions. Forget Joe Biden than when Barack Obama took. When Barack Obama was what we considered a very accessible president.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't think that's true. Serious questions, like, I can remember from Trump, like, you can remember the interviews where Trump sitting down with Tapper, Trump sitting down with Savannah Guthrie, Trump sitting down with 60 minutes. Like, those are tough, real difficult interviews. He, like, Peter Doocy is maybe one of the better ones when he's running and Kaitlan Collins when she's allowed in there.

[Tommy Vietor]

But he does it with a light touch.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Peter does it like Caitlyn. Caitlin's probably the best one in the press corps.

[Tommy Vietor]

There are some real reporters sprinkled in with some very stupid, ridiculous people. Look, I think Sean McCree's question was great and good on him for asking it. I think that used to be the norm.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, I remember my uncle was a political reporter and I think it was George H.W. bush said that the United States should, like, be okay with assassinating foreign leaders. And he and his buddy ran around every event and asked him who he would kill first and why and just ruin his whole, like, rollout event. And like, that should be where we're at.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, well, well, yes, those were when Barack Obama or George W. Bush or someone did a press conference. Remember, it would be like you would set up the Easter room. You'd set up a space, it was outside of the normal room. It was like you made a moment of it because it was kind of less frequent. And then the questions were all very serious, hitting on all the major news topics, like Trump breaks that up. And you'd have to do the actual math on the give and takes. But the fact that he is just. He is as accessible to the mainstream media as any president we've ever. It's the truth.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, well, including to us, hopefully.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Call me back, sir.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

Should I text him?

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah, text him.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just a pic of me. I'm not gonna text him.

[Jon Favreau]

Alright, guys, that's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast subs to YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelaviev, David Toles, and Ryan Young, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America, eas.