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- [00:00]
Connor Lamb
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- [00:37]
Harry Littman
Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day. I'm Harry Littman. The war in Iran expands and grows more deadly by the day. It now has drawn in more than a dozen countries, including some outside the Middle East. Russia has now entered the fray, helping Iran, whose air defenses have been ravaged, to direct their still large arsenal of drones. In the meantime, the administration continues to proffer a shifting series of explanations for why we started the war in the first place. And it seems to have no firm idea of what we are trying to achieve and more importantly, when our involvement will end. The news pact week also brought the first set of primaries for the midterms. Both parties had reason for concern that the prevailing mood in the country is anti incumbent. The closely watched Senate race in Texas remains in flux with a runoff on the Republican side that could prove pivotal for the Democratic candidate's chances in the fall. Trump fired Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security, the first sacking in his cabinet during Trump 2.0. Noem had assembled a spectacular track record of blunders and embarrassments. But her fatal move was her testimony and that Trump had greenlighted a controversial ad campaign to unpack a turbulent week of war elections and turnover in the Cabinet. We're joined by a terrific group of expert commentators and they are Jonathan Alter, an award winning author, filmmaker, columnist and MSNBC political analyst. He's authored more books than I can count, but about fdr, Obama, Jimmy Carter, and most recently the felony trial of Donald Trump, which we attended together. And he's got a great substack entitled Old Goats, everyone. Check it out. And John, thanks for being here.
- [02:59]
Jonathan Alter
Thanks, Harry.
- [03:00]
Harry Littman
Connor Lamb. Connor represented parts of Pittsburgh in Congress from 2018 to 2023. Before that, he served as an Assistant U.S. attorney in the great and exalted Western District of Pennsylvania, my old Office, and spent 2009 to 2013 on active duty in the Marine Corps. He now practices law at Klein and Specter and teaches a course on faith and democracy at Duquesne University. Connor Lamb, thank you very much for your service and thanks for joining. Talking feds.
- [03:36]
Connor Lamb
Go Steelers.
- [03:38]
Harry Littman
Steelers. What about that McCutcheon move? Can you imagine the ingrates? I hope the whole city is up in arms about that.
- [03:46]
Connor Lamb
Yeah, I didn't say go pirates for a reason.
- [03:48]
Harry Littman
There you go. And Mara Liasson, the national political correspondent for npr. She's reported on seven presidential elections. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's Politics podcast as well as its program's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Always a pleasure to welcome you. Thanks for returning, Mara.
- [04:10]
Mara Liasson
Happy to be here.
- [04:11]
Harry Littman
All right, I think we need to start this week with the war in Iran which seems to be spinning out of control. Just this morning as we tape, Trump called for Iran's unconditional surrender. We are at four explanations and counting for the war, regime change, preemptive strike, nuclear program, support of Israel. Oh, also respond to terrorism and the ever elastic Trump reason. I had a feeling, why can't the administration just get its message straight on what we're doing there?
- [04:45]
Mara Liasson
Because maybe it doesn't know. I mean, the impression you get is the president who's making it up as he goes along. And unless this is some incredibly four dimensional chess, which usually after he offers six different contradictory explanations, you get the four dimensional chess analysis. That is, if you don't have clearly articulated objectives, you're not going to get in trouble politically for not reaching them or not achieving them. I think the president wants to be able to walk away whenever he wants to walk away. He says he wants to stay in the next leader of Iran. But we know that regime change has never, ever happened from the air alone. And that's so far what the president seems to think he can do. Just bomb them. They'll give up and he can claim another victory. And most experts say that's highly unlikely.
- [05:34]
Harry Littman
Can you just elaborate a bit? So that's right. Regime change normally requires what, that we seem not to have even taken the first step of boots on the ground.
- [05:43]
Mara Liasson
Now, he hasn't completely ruled that out either has the defense secretary. But generally it takes boots on the ground. I mean, look at Gaza and some
- [05:51]
Harry Littman
priming of the opposition.
- [05:52]
Mara Liasson
Yes, some priming of the opposition. Look at Gaza. Gaza is rubble. Who still controls Gaza? Hamas. I mean, if Israel couldn't even achieve regime change with that much aerial assault, I don't know how you do it in Iran.
- [06:06]
Connor Lamb
Yeah. Another way to think about it is the same people who had all the guns in Iran a week ago have all the guns there today. I mean, they might be suffering because of all these bombs dropped from the sky, but like they still have the power to control things until someone stronger comes along to oust them. And, you know, it sounds like that was another thing the administration woke up to after the fact. They're leaking the idea that they want to send these Kurds in there from however far away. It sounds like they started working on that after the, the attack began, which is something if you were rational, you would do on the front end.
- [06:38]
Harry Littman
Let me serve up a, a comment based on both Mara and Conor's comments. I mean, Mara says, well, you know, maybe some commentators, I don't think any of them here will be taking the hypothesis that they've got it all thought through. Others would seem that it's completely being made up as we go. We're six days into war, it's touched 12 countries. Russia now has become involved. Do we think anybody there has the idea of an end game or game plan generally?
- [07:11]
Mara Liasson
Well, Israel should.
- [07:12]
Jonathan Alter
No, I think they do, actually. I mean, just to back up for a second, like the Iraq War, this war was launched with a lie. Trump said that Iran posed an imminent threat. The Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee said that they won't have an ICBM until 2035 at the earliest. Not exactly imminent threat to the United States. So that was their first reason. That's really the only reason that you can identify that's to start a war is if there's an imminent threat after that point. I do think, and they're certainly not playing three dimensional chess, but I do think that they have an overall objective which is regime change if possible. It's highly unlikely for the reasons that we've talked about. The protesters have no guns and a government is defined by a group of people who have a monopoly on violence. And the regime still does. So that's highly unlikely to happen. It's foolhardy to think that the Kurds are going to be able to come down from the north and dislodge the regime. But they do have an objective to destroy Iran's military capacity. So I've run afoul of some friends in the last day or two because I don't want this war to stop right now. I don't think it's actually responsible for the war to stop right now. We should never have gotten into it. It was a terrible idea. But once you start to not complete the mission of destroying The Iranian navy, which is what Trump laid out at the beginning, just to destroy a few ships and then call it a day is not really a good idea at this point. I don't know whether it takes another five days, seven days, two weeks, I don't know what the timeframe is, but they should try to finish the job. Even though Iran will pretty quickly rebuild certain of these military capabilities, they need to, as long as we're at it, make sure that we really disable their armed forces.
- [09:38]
Mara Liasson
But isn't that the military objectives were pretty clear? I mean, destroy the navy. Everybody understands what that means, but what happens after you do that? Or is this just one of those Israeli style mowing the lawn projects where every five years you go in and you destroy the navy Again, we don't
- [09:53]
Jonathan Alter
know that is what it's looking like. It will be. I'm just cautioning sort of the ceasefire now crowd, you know, like to stop it today. It's. Even though they have no game plan, it's not going to end well. They're going to be a lot of unanticipated consequences. Mow the lawn right now, since we got the mower revved up and we probably will have to do it again in five years, as you say.
- [10:19]
Harry Littman
Does that include their nuclear capability?
- [10:22]
Connor Lamb
Not really. I mean, I think that, I don't know that that's actually really going to be all that affected by what we're doing because of the way a lot of that stuff is buried. You know, it looked like the takeaway from the bombing last summer was, sure, it was a setback, but it was not a kill shot. And that was even with the most accurate bombing down into the ground that we were capable of. So it seems like sort of foolish for us to be saying that there's a final answer on the nuclear stuff just from this bombing campaign.
- [10:48]
Jonathan Alter
Oh, yeah, there's definitely not a final answer. I was just going to say that as long as we're talking about Trump lies, when he said last June that we had totally obliterated, quote, unquote, their nuclear capacity, that was a lie. And it was clear at the time that it was a lie because they didn't release any photographs, you know, that would confirm that they had it Fordo and the other facilities that, that the bunker busters had actually taken it out. So, you know, the press stopped paying attention, but it was clear that was lie. What we don't know right now and doesn't really bode that well is did they go back to Fordo? They do have other bunker busters to try to set them back a little further. There was some reporting with the underground facilities. They were trying to explode bombs that would basically seal them with the. The weight of the bombs and the damage that the bombs did and that that could further set back their program. But, you know, they took a lot of stuff out of those facilities and they will still have some kind of program. Even if we were there for two years, you know, they would have something that was left over.
- [11:58]
Harry Littman
So let me serve this up if I could, John, to Conor and Mara, let's accept John's premise. I want to say Connor may disagree, but I doubt it, as the lawyer in the group, that this. It was patently illegal. The reasons stated matter, of course, if it were true that they were about to attack the US that alone might have provided a justification on the law of war. But so now we're in a legal war. Accepting his view for purposes of this question, that we've got to finish the job. Do you agree that finishing the job means basically mowing down the navy for now, or would you have a different supposition about what the end point would
- [12:40]
Mara Liasson
be based on everything the president says finishing the job, according to him, would be? Regime change. I think he's dug that hole. I mean, I don't know how he turns this into Venezuela, where the lead singer is nabbed, but the band plays on. I mean, I don't think he can do that in Iran. I think if they survive, the regime survives, that's a win for them. I think it's more than just taking out their navy because of what he said, that he wants a say in who's gonna be the next leader and regime change and the Iranians should rise up and. Yeah, I mean, I think he set the bar kind of high for himself, even though he's also made a lot of contradictory statements, including just this morning
- [13:21]
Harry Littman
talking about unconditional surrender. Conor, any thoughts?
- [13:24]
Connor Lamb
Well, I just. I hate to be the difficult guest who doesn't want to accept the premise of your question, but I think it can't. We can't fail to mention that the gang who literally can't shoot straight appears to have killed 175 people at a girls school, most of them children. Yeah, there is a risk of something like that happening every hour that we're engaged in this bombing campaign. And I don't know if that was AI targeting or just, you know, Hegseth Co. Like, not having their head on straight, but there's real consequences to this. And that's why it's important, I think, not to push past the question of, like, what the job even is and who decided that was the job and whose interest that job is. Because I still can't tell how any of this countered an imminent threat of the United States. I can understand it from Israel's perspective, kind of. I still don't think it's all that smart. But I can't understand it from the US Perspective because of this nuclear issue we've talked about, because the fact that even if they had a nuclear bomb, they couldn't get it to the United States since they don't have the right missiles, all these things. And so there's even answering a question like what does finishing the job mean? Is almost impossible from our perspective.
- [14:32]
Mara Liasson
Yeah. And also maybe the most operative thing that Trump has said is when he said it was my feeling and, and at another time he said it was my opinion. He didn't say the intelligence community came to me with these incredible granular information about their capabilities or intentions or how fast they were moving. No, it was his opinion and his feeling. And that is what I think is going to drive this going forward.
- [14:54]
Harry Littman
Yeah. I was reminded in a bone chilling way of his quote last month, I think it was in the New York Times or January, saying, my, the only thing that constrains me is my own sense of moral authority.
- [15:08]
Jonathan Alter
I mean, his statements, unconditional surrender, I'll decide who the leaders, they're just horrifyingly irresponsible things to say. But trumping Trump, it, he doesn't get locked into anything. And so about three weeks from now, when the 30 to 60 day requirements that are in the War Powers act kicks in, you have some Republicans now on the Hill who are saying, okay, right now he doesn't need our permission, but under the law, you know, Obama didn't get our permission. They have some good arguments that presidents have been conducting aerial campaigns without congressional authorization for a very long time. And, you know, we haven't had an actual declared war since World War II. And when the Bushes got some authorization, it was, you know, with a lot of boots on the ground, which was, is a very different situation. And by the way, just something about Hegseth, who I think, you know, should resign as maybe the worst Secretary of defense in history, but when he said he wasn't ruling out boots on the ground, that was the right thing to say. And again, we're so sort of blinded by our justifiable contempt for this evil administration that sometimes we miss when somebody actually Says the right thing. So remember in the 90s, I wrote a column in Newsweek where the Clinton administration took ground troops off the table. They said, this will just be an aerial campaign against Milosevic in Serbia. No ground trips. I'm saying, you, you never say that to your adversary. Why would you do that? That's just a dumb thing to say in war to take ground troops off the table. So if they actually put ground troops in there, it would be cataclysmic. I don't think they will. I don't even think Trump will ever do that. And my sense of this, nobody knows where it's going, and not pretending to, but that when the 30 day period of time elapses, at that point, Trump will just do a 180. He'll declare victory. He'll say, we've destroyed the Iranian military. You know, I told you at the beginning I didn't know what was going to come next. And we're out and a month from now, we're not going to be there. That's just my feeling.
- [17:46]
Harry Littman
All right, let me. I want to make one legal point, but certainly John's observation. He has again and again and again declared victory in ways that have completely contradicted the sort of terms of engagement that he previously had drawn. Just for people listening, this 30 and 60 days in the wake of Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers act, which provides that they seek authorization initially, but if it isn't given, then at the end of a 30 day period, supposedly things stop. Of course it's gonna be the opinion of the administration if push comes to shove that that very act is unconstitutional infringement on the president's authority. So you may see that kind of legal battle. But I wanted to turn to Congress. Both chambers this week voted down an effort to force the administration to seek authorization. War powers vote in the Senate, Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Rand Paul were the only ones to swap sides in the House. A little bit more. Where are the Dems now about this war, which does have its own kind of momentum, and what are their practical options for any sort of rear guard opposition?
- [19:05]
Connor Lamb
I think that the heart of the party is where most of the people are that voted for the resolution, which is, I think, everybody but four in the House. And it's, you know, there's no imminent threat. There's no reason to put our troops in harm's way. We should have learned all the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. And oh, by the way, the number one issue is the economy and we're spending at least 1 billion I heard a report today that the Pentagon may be spending $2 billion every day. And so I think you'll hear a lot from Democrats about what you could be getting for $2 billion a day, which is quite a bit.
- [19:36]
Harry Littman
Does Congress and the Senate figure in at all going forward to what happens here?
- [19:43]
Mara Liasson
Well, I don't think they do right now. I think if American casualties mount and oil prices stay high and this war gets even more unpopular, maybe you get a critical mass in Congress to push back against it. But it's very hard to imagine that. I mean, Congress has emasculated itself on so many issues, but none but more vigorously than this, than war powers. I mean, Trump isn't the first president who's violated this principle. So I think that politically, as long as we're just bombing and Americans aren't dying and oil prices aren't going through the roof, I think that the argument is a good one for Democrats to say here it's $2 billion a day. Has he brought your prices down? And here's what that could be buying. But I don't see a big revolt in Congress over that.
- [20:28]
Connor Lamb
There will be an interesting test coming up fast because they're spending so much that they're going to need to go back to the Hill to get more money in a supplemental. And DHS is still shut down and they've started making linking that argument of how can you keep our Homeland Security shut down when we're at war and there's a risk of terrorism. And so it'll be interesting to see which Democrats kind of, I don't want to say fold, but basically give into the administration now that, you know, they have started this war and say, well, we've got to properly fund it and which ones hold the line. And that'll give you a sense kind of, of how strongly the party's feeling about this.
- [21:01]
Jonathan Alter
Mara mentioned the unpopularity of this. It is so striking and it really surprised me. So maybe somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that in the entire history of polling, which goes back to the 1930s, that there has never been a case where in the immediate aftermath of the commencing of hostilities, the president wasn't well above 50% approval. Because it's a rally.
- [21:32]
Mara Liasson
No rally around the flag. Yeah, no rally around the flag.
- [21:35]
Jonathan Alter
So that is astonishing. It's basically unprecedented ever. And before polling, it's hard to imagine a president going to war without public support. So. And it's not like they're at 45% support or 40% support. They're in the 20s in Republican polls. This is an astonishingly unpopular war.
- [22:00]
Harry Littman
It really is. And that's including maga, which is sort of on board by very high margins. So if you take them out, this is an overwhelming. And this, in fact, is where I wanted to end. I understand how Congress has taken itself out of the picture, but with this kind of unpopularity and, you know, it's only going to get worse, it seems to me there will be other episodes like the one Conor mentioned, and there will be more casualties. He's already gone to war without preparing the nation and as far as we can tell, without preparing the military for some end game. But can he really stay the course if there's just this tsunami of public opinion against. We're not predictors. But what about the public factor here?
- [22:51]
Connor Lamb
Well, I mean, that's another question that is really gonna be measured when the price tag comes due quite soon. Because he ultimately, just like anything else, he's gonna need every single Republican vote to get this money through somehow, plus some Democrats, unless he wants to, you know, threaten to eliminate the filibuster over it in the Senate. So we're gonna have that fight pretty quick. My guess is enough Democrats will back down because they're going to not want to say that they're depriving the troops of anything. But then really soon, we're in midterm election season, and I think he just took a bad year for him and made it a lot worse. And if you're dealing with a lopsided, you know, House majority of the other party, I don't know how you sustain a war like that. But maybe he thinks. Maybe he thinks it's 2004 and he's George W. Bush.
- [23:38]
Harry Littman
Yeah. Or he's just trying to. Anything to shake up the dynamic.
- [23:42]
Mara Liasson
Yeah. This is a president who takes big risks. There's no doubt about it. The State of the Union. Huge risk where you don't even try to empathize with people's trouble paying their bills. All you do is say how great it is. You don't have a single nod to, we have more work to do, or I feel your pain. Not at all. And then this. That he. That he stayed silent for the first, what, three, four days? No explanation? No. Trying to lay out his case for the public. I mean, these are really, really risky. It shows you how invincible he feels. He is, I think.
- [24:12]
Harry Littman
Let's leave it here for now. I suspect we'll be talking all the more next week, but let's move to the subject Conor raises. The first primaries are in the books. So I wonder what signals you think they provided about where we are heading into the midterms. If you see a dominant sentiment, is it anti Trump, anti Maga, or is it more anti incumbent? Because both sides had a few surprises come their way.
- [24:42]
Mara Liasson
Well, anti incumbent and the incumbents are the Republicans and Democrats are really energized. Big turnout for them. That doesn't mean that they're going to wave a magic wand and win Texas, but it, it's amazing. The Democratic Party is at historic low approval ratings and Democratic candidates keep on winning. You know, in some cases bigger than curvature of the earth. I mean, it's, it's really something.
- [25:07]
Connor Lamb
She's right. You know, that's just one of those polling numbers that means less and less. It's almost a manufactured statistic because not that many people make choices on the basis of their abstract idea of a party. I think that, you know, I spent a lot of time sort of on the trail still too, around Pennsylvania and the huge premium is on new voices. And so, you know, we don't have enough data really just from last Tuesday to say where the party is. But one of the reasons I think you're seeing it feels like anti incumbent in both parties is because they want newer people, they want younger people who know how to communicate kind of across platforms. And that was something that Talarico pulled off really well. His primary almost didn't become a moderate versus left or black versus white thing so much as it was like styles of campaigning. And he was, he had the whole range in his arsenal. It was really impressive.
- [25:54]
Mara Liasson
Maybe it's the Mamdani playbook.
- [25:56]
Harry Littman
It seemed as if Crockett certainly didn't, but okay, so everyone's gone right to Texas. We, let's focus on that for a few minutes. We did have Talarico defeating Crockett and Kane from some points down. And then on the other side, Ken Paxton and John Cornyn. It seems to me that if you're Talarico's folks, you want Paxton to win that primary as a more extreme candidate. But you know, there's been focus on Texas seems to me again and again in the last six, eight, 10 years. And it's always kind of come back to ground as a Republican stronghold. What's going on, do you think? And is it really in, in reach?
- [26:39]
Jonathan Alter
So it's in reach. But to say that it's likely that Talarico is going to win is I think inaccurate. It's possible, but we're not at a point yet where we can say it's likely. And part of this is just personal experience. You know, I had a. I had a flashback to when I was covering the dukakis campaign almost 40 years ago.
- [27:04]
Harry Littman
Ooh, really?
- [27:05]
Mara Liasson
Ooh, when we were 10.
- [27:07]
Harry Littman
Yeah, exactly.
- [27:09]
Jonathan Alter
And we're in Texas and we're at a funeral. Dukakis is attending a funeral of a big Latino voter registration guy. And I'm there for Newsweek, and there's all this talk about how Texas, they didn't have blue and red then. That's how long ago this was. Texas is going Democratic now because this guy who just died in his organization and all the people, that the whole funeral was like a celebration almost of how much progress they had made in registering Latinos. And this was going to turn Texas blue again, Democratic again. And of course, it didn't happen. And we went through it with Beto o'. Rourke. We've had many examples over the last. I don't know how many years has it been since a Democrat has been elected statewide in Texas? 16.
- [28:03]
Mara Liasson
Since 1994, I think.
- [28:05]
Jonathan Alter
94, okay. Really?
- [28:07]
Mara Liasson
A long time in Texas. Oh, you mean since the Democrat is one statewide?
- [28:10]
Jonathan Alter
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [28:11]
Harry Littman
So Richards, whatever.
- [28:12]
Mara Liasson
Yeah, I think so.
- [28:13]
Jonathan Alter
You know, what's going to happen is. And Tal Rico is a gifted candidate and he has probably the best chance of anybody for a variety of reasons. But if Cornyn is the nominee, which I think is more likely now because the indications are Trump is going to endorse him and that would then be decisive in the runoff, he will spend millions of dollars exposing what are quite liberal positions by Talarico on a wide variety of issues. You know, he wasn't really to the right of Crockett. He was just speaking in a different tone, a much more sensible, moderate tone. But he's quite vulnerable in Texas on the issues and Cornyn will raise them. And Cornyn is sort of a plain vanilla guy who I think quite a number of independent voters will come home to in November. So if Paxton wins, I think Talarico has a very good chance of beating Paxton, but not Cornyn.
- [29:21]
Mara Liasson
What do you, John, what do you make of Paxton's weird offer to drop out if they just got rid of the filibuster for the SAVE Act?
- [29:29]
Jonathan Alter
The guy is a frickin lunatic.
- [29:32]
Mara Liasson
I mean, I didn't understand that.
- [29:33]
Connor Lamb
Yeah, that is a. That is a viral social media demand right now. And so that. That's where Paxton's coming from. He probably has someone telling him, you know, that's what the base wants.
- [29:44]
Mara Liasson
Oh, I guess that's what the base wants. But to offer to drop out if
- [29:47]
Harry Littman
they did that, you would normally think that means it's totally far fetched. That's what would make it safe. But my understanding is it's very likely. And that's a whole different grave, grave concern if they're able to pass it by dropping the filibuster. Right.
- [30:02]
Jonathan Alter
Wait, very likely. What, Harry, what are you saying?
- [30:05]
Harry Littman
My understanding is that Trump is pushing hard, the White House is pushing hard and they will suspend the filibuster in order to pass the SAVE Act. At least that's considered a strong possibility.
- [30:17]
Connor Lamb
Really?
- [30:18]
Jonathan Alter
To pass an act that will disenfranchise millions of women who have a different name on their birth certificate than they do on their voting records. They're going to disenfranchise.
- [30:28]
Harry Littman
Precisely. You heard that right? That's a cherished goal.
- [30:32]
Mara Liasson
But that's because Trump steal still believes that the fewer people who vote, the better it is for Republicans, which I don't know if that's true anymore. Well, it wasn't true in 2024.
- [30:41]
Jonathan Alter
I mean, was not.
- [30:42]
Connor Lamb
Yeah, yeah. My guess is they think it's a question of control. Like, I think they believe it, it hands them some discretionary control in, in who's going to be voting where, which is like a control panel in their minds. But yeah, I think the, to just return quickly to what Jonathan was saying about Texas and Talarico. If you think about one of the biggest long term challenges for the Democratic Party, it's, it's how we ever get more than 50 or 51 Senate seats in this country. You know, you, you have to win either a Texas and Ohio and Iowa and Alaska. And there's just so many people in our party that believe you can do that by repackaging the same set of policy positions and make no sacrifices. And that's, you know, people like me have run into that buzzsaw in the past where, you know, it's actually like a slight heterodoxy goes a long way in some of these places. And so, you know, James is young and although he has a lot of quite liberal things in his background, he strikes me also as savvy enough to know that it might be time to show people you're able to think differently on one or two issues. And I'll be curious to see if he can do that.
- [31:49]
Mara Liasson
So wait, I have a question for Connor. So you think the road back to the center where you can actually win rural areas and red States, which you guys have to do after the. By the 2030 census or you're practically extinct in the electoral college. Is that is the path to there through cultural issues and moving to the center on cultural issues, Is that what you're saying?
- [32:09]
Connor Lamb
It's certainly one path. You know, I never like to be the one that says there's some like sort of silver bullet solution. But what I think I'm saying is slightly more broad, which is that voters in these states would need to look at a Democratic candidate and have the confidence to know they aren't taking their orders from Washington because they are different in some way. So it could be a cultural way, could be an economic way. You know, down in Texas, it could be as simple as like some kind of focus on oil and gas jobs and how important they are and maybe showing that you're not going to let those be taken away under Democratic administration. I don't know what it actually, but just that slight maverick quality I think opens the door with people for you to make your case. And without that, if you're another Democrat just in slightly different packaging, my experience is you don't really get through the door.
- [32:55]
Harry Littman
This might be worth noting in Connor's state, the governor does, as best I can tell, exactly the same in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as a garden variety standard issue Democrat. You know, the old saw as it goes. Mars is Pennsylvania's to the west. Philadelphia.
- [33:14]
Mara Liasson
Yeah.
- [33:14]
Harry Littman
And Alabama in between.
- [33:16]
Mara Liasson
Yeah.
- [33:16]
Harry Littman
Yeah.
- [33:16]
Jonathan Alter
Wow. So a guy named Shapiro is doing well in Alabama.
- [33:20]
Mara Liasson
It's like pencil tucky.
- [33:22]
Harry Littman
Yeah, exactly. In the tea. In the tea, we'll call it. Somebody who's not doing very well is Tony Gonzalez who just this morning announced he's suspending his campaign after. Wow. Talk about. I just read the headlines in the paper too. But his. He has an affair with a staffer who sets herself on fire and kills herself. What does the race. So Republicans pushed him and he's now withdrawing. Any sense of what that looks like down there?
- [33:51]
Jonathan Alter
After Gonzalez, the reason the Republicans cut him loose is they're really scared. Not just about losing the House, but about losing in the Rio Grande Valley where they just carved out these new seats.
- [34:05]
Harry Littman
That's where the new fives are. Right. And they. Yeah.
- [34:08]
Mara Liasson
It could be a dummy mander. It could be a dummy mander.
- [34:11]
Jonathan Alter
It could be. So that's a great idea.
- [34:13]
Harry Littman
Can we make that the title of this episode? That's excellent.
- [34:16]
Jonathan Alter
Dummy mander. I never heard that.
- [34:17]
Mara Liasson
Oh, you've never heard that. That's a gerrymander that backfires.
- [34:20]
Connor Lamb
Yeah.
- [34:21]
Mara Liasson
Because every time you make a new district, you have to make it a little less solid or you make the old district less solid.
- [34:26]
Jonathan Alter
So it's risky that then that's how the Democrats run up the score and they win 35 seats instead of, you know, have margin of 10 seats because they've diluted these seats. But to me, the MO. The single most important exit poll statistic from 2024 was that 47% of Latino men voted for Trump. Whether that was pull up the ladder, whether it was on cultural issues, whatever the explanation was, and this is up from maybe as high as 30% in prior elections. George W. Bush did well with Latino men in Texas, better than average in his two presidential elections. But generally the Democrats, you know, they get like better than 60% of Latino men. They got just a little over 50% of them this last time. Now all of the indications, whether it's in Latino areas of, of New Jersey, what we're seeing in Texas, where Talarico did really well with Latinos, a tremendous number showed up in the Democratic primary, which contributed to the fact the overall vote was higher for Democrats than for Republicans. They don't like seeing their cousins spread eagled at Home Depot. You know, they don't like it. And this is a huge, huge problem for the Republicans in at least the next couple cycles that all of those advances they made with Latino men are gone. They don't exist anymore. And that's the new political reality that we have that I think contributes powerfully to why the Democrats have a very good shot this year.
- [36:11]
Harry Littman
And they sure placed a big bet on it. And it'll be quite the story if it turns out to backfire and be a, again a dummy.
- [36:20]
Mara Liasson
Dummy mander.
- [36:21]
Harry Littman
Dummy mander. Yeah, I love it. Okay, let's turn to another scandal ridden Republican. We have the first domino to fall in the Cabinet. Kristi Noem. In stark Contrast to Trump 1.0. He's really kept everyone in, notwithstanding scandal after scandal. Bondi, Epstein, Patel, Kennedy, etc. What made Nome the first head to fall? Why her?
- [36:51]
Mara Liasson
I think there were a bunch of reasons. One is the immigration policy turns out to be incredibly unpopular. She was the face of it and her making herself the face of it was another problem for her. Because you can only have one Trump or one Trumpy person in the administration and you can't have somebody else who's kind of on TV all the time being the face of the deportation effort. And according to Republican senators, aggrandizing herself and boosting her name recognition. But so somebody there had to be a scapegoat. She didn't have a lot of goodwill with members of Congress. She had, you know, annoyed a critical mass of administration officials. But I think the bottom line is the immigration policy is very unpopular and somebody had to take responsibility for that. And I just saw a poll number that I was very surprised at because up until now we've said, you know, the general immigration policy is popular, securing the border, deporting criminals who are also undocumented. But people like the idea, but don't like the idea of how ICE is going about it. But apparently in a new YouGov poll, half of Americans supported abolishing ICE. Now, that is an extraordinary number. It just shows you how unpopular it is.
- [38:05]
Jonathan Alter
You still think it's not smart for Democrats to say abolish ICE?
- [38:09]
Mara Liasson
Oh, I totally agree, 100%. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just surprised that people would express their anger by saying they agreed with abolishing ice. I'm not saying Democrats should run on them. That would be almost as dumb as defunding the police.
- [38:21]
Jonathan Alter
Yes, yes.
- [38:22]
Mara Liasson
But I'm not talking about what, where the Democrats should land. And I agree with John saying you want to abolish ICE or defund the police. It's always. It's already been proven to be a really, really bad idea politically. I just was struck by a poll where half of Americans said they supported abolishing ice. Not that they really do, but that they're so angry about how ICE has operated, that they were. That.
- [38:43]
Jonathan Alter
That we got that number on March 28th. A lot of people are going to go out to the no Kings protests, probably over 10 million. There were 7 million the last time. And a lot of them will have signs, abolish ice. And my feeling is the signs should say, stop ice. Yeah, rein in ice. Restrain ice. Reform ice. But if you say abolish ice, the kind of moderate, independent voter is going to go, okay, so we're not going to have any immigration enforcement. Like, what are you talking about?
- [39:14]
Mara Liasson
No, no, that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Just.
- [39:16]
Jonathan Alter
Yeah, no, I know, I know.
- [39:17]
Harry Littman
You would just say people are really,
- [39:19]
Mara Liasson
really against ISIS tactics. And like you said, they don't want to see their cousin spread eagled in Home Depot.
- [39:24]
Jonathan Alter
Yeah.
- [39:25]
Connor Lamb
The other thing about Nome, I think just that significant is that they want to close the whole Minneapolis chapter and have everybody forget about it. And I think the Iran, the Iran war is part of a major distraction effort, and it just can't be repeated enough times that we all watch two Americans get murdered on screen, and there's no active prosecution going in either one of those situations. And so they want you to believe that, you know, sort of finally firing Noem closes that chapter, as if, you know, Trump's leadership stepped in when things got out of control. But that's not true. Like, it's just one more fig leaf for the things that they're trying to do.
- [39:59]
Harry Littman
An excellent point, and I'll just say as to Noem's role there, she actually is the one who said with no proof, and she's tried to lay it on the officials in the field, but there's no proof of that, that these were acts of domestic terrorism. And as long as she's around that that quote is going to stay with her.
- [40:17]
Jonathan Alter
There's reporting that that was Stephen Miller's line. He told her to say it. I'm not. I haven't independently confirmed that. There's other very interesting reporting that sounds solid to me that Susie Wiles or somebody else brought Noem's testimony where she said that Trump had signed off on $220 million in ads, would feature her. Now, Trump, we all know he doesn't like any ads that don't have him in it. So he's. His reaction to that is she lied and said that I signed off on $220 million in ads with her face, not me. I never heard about these ads. She lied. Fire her. So there was. I can't remember what paper. I think the Journal maybe reported that. And that made it intuitive sense. Sense to me.
- [41:10]
Harry Littman
In my view, that was the. The pivotal factor in the answer. I had a substack on Friday to this point, you know, he's let everyone run ragged and get away with everything but that, you know, embarrassed to him and the public campaign, which came up in her hearing, you know, she put him in a bad light. And that, to me, was the cardinal rule that she violated more than anything else. That really was the reason for her sacking.
- [41:37]
Jonathan Alter
Harry, can I ask you a question? Why do you think there have been no arrests in Minneapolis of the people of the murderers? Basically, the DA Is apparently very good there. Why haven't there been arrests?
- [41:53]
Harry Littman
Yeah, a couple of things. And Connor might have a view here as well. I think there will be arrests, and there is a little bit of infighting between the DA of Hennepin county and the Attorney General of Minnesota. But knowing that the United States is going to be imposing obstacles and knowing further that the real event will play out in federal court when the defendants, the. The ICE officials who shot them move for immunity. I think councils Minnesota and they are getting this council from all sides to have all ducks in a row before you bring either murder or manslaughter charges under Minnesota law. Because once you're in there, you actually have a sort of side antagonist of the federal government. Never. It's unprecedented and kind of nauseating. But I think it's that that they have sensibly decided we've got to anticipate everything because we're going to go into a field in federal court where the feds are opposing us. I wonder, Connor, if you have any different view having been a long time at USA yourself.
- [43:05]
Connor Lamb
No, I think that's probably right. And you just have to keep in mind that they will need to compile a mountain of evidence to try to withstand all these obstacles that Harry's talking about. Think about how hard it must be for them to get access to a lot of that evidence right now. It's so different.
- [43:19]
Harry Littman
Oh, they won't. They won't have the car. They won't. Yeah, there's stuff they won't have. On the other hand, and this has been a theme, you know, including in other topics. We talked about the power of video in 2026. Right. I mean it's just a complete game changer. Including in the war, including the point you're making about people spread eagled in the parking lots that just sort of cuts through viscerally. And one other point about it is if you have enough videos as they do. New York Times did a great job of this very quick war story is, you know, when I worked in the Rodney King case, there was only that one grainy video and it posed all kinds of problems. When you have 30 and you can mix and match, it's the equivalent of like a whole forensic analysis.
- [44:08]
Mara Liasson
Who knew that the cell phone would be a guardrail of democracy?
- [44:11]
Harry Littman
Yes, 100%.
- [44:12]
Mara Liasson
Or the cell phone camera. The cell phone camera would be a guardrail of democracy.
- [44:16]
Jonathan Alter
The cell phone and the whistle. And who knew that Minneapolis would be the new Selma? You know, when history is happening, it's sometimes hard to recognize it.
- [44:26]
Mara Liasson
We know that they went there because of their great antipathy to Somalians and they've never explained why sending in ICE troops was going to ferret out financial fraud. I never understood the connection there. But you know, Minneapolis was a. Was a very risky place to pick because they have one of the highest civic cultures in America.
- [44:45]
Harry Littman
Yes, yes.
- [44:45]
Mara Liasson
And the highest community cultures in America.
- [44:48]
Jonathan Alter
They've now set the standard right. With the phone and the whistle. So wherever they go, it will turn into Minneapolis, especially if they're going into blue states because they don't want to go into red states because they have a harder time.
- [45:01]
Mara Liasson
Right, Right.
- [45:02]
Jonathan Alter
For the blue states that they go into, it's not like there's some other city where they're not going to be people with cell phones and whistles. So I think Christopher Freeland really got it right. In the New York Times yesterday, the former foreign minister of Canadian and a brilliant, brilliant woman. She said 2025 is was the year of capitulation and 2026 is the year resistance. And we went from fear is contagious last year to courage is contagious this year.
- [45:43]
Harry Littman
All right, it is now time for a spirited debate brought to you by our sponsor, Total Wine and more. Each episode you'll be hearing an expert talk about the pros and cons of a Britannia issue in the world of wine, spirit and beverages.
- [46:01]
Total Wine and More Expert
Thank you, Harry. In today's spirited debate, we look at three different techniques for making wine to see if there's truly a best way to first is a type of wine that's actually produced quite similarly to reds, but the fermentation time of the grape is reduced, giving itself signature pink color. The first technique for making is the skin contact method in which black skinned grapes such as Pinot Noir are crushed but allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period of time. After about six to 48 hours, as opposed to weeks or months for the reds, the skins are separated. This method is most frequently used in the top producing region of the world, probably Provence and throughout the south of France. The second method is called Sagnier, which is the French word for bleeding. This method creates both a and a red wine. Early in the maceration process, some of the pink juice created from the grape must is removed to make the while the remaining juice becomes a more concentrated red. A made from this method tends to be richer and darker and in both color and fruit flavor. This method is more rarely used, but it can be found more often in Spain, Napa and Chile. The third method is blending. Contrary to what some people think, blending is not just a 5050 pour of red and white wine. Instead, blending is where a white grape such as Chardonnay is blended with a red grape and it's the most popular way to make a champagne. Although popular in Champagne, this method is used in still roses as well. In fact, some winemakers in Provence choose to blend small percentages of white grape varieties into their. It's not always obvious or easy to know which method was used to make a particular. But the expert guides at Total Wine and More help you navigate our wondrous selection to find a that makes your day. So find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More. Cheers.
- [48:26]
Harry Littman
Thanks to our friends at Total Wine and More for today's a spirited debate. Just a couple more follow ups on Nome. First notice, and this is true of the other people who were forced out, Lindsey Halligan, Alina Haba, you know, in Trump 1.0 there's a whole kind of body count, Kelly and others, of people who leave the fold. Trump was pretty careful here to talk nice and Noem took the hint and responded. And she's got some August sounding title that makes no sense to me. Is this part of the strategy to, you know, the Guillotine falls? But she still is, you know, you
- [49:08]
Mara Liasson
want to keep her in the tent. You don't want her angry rocks from outside. Just like Mike waltz goes to U.N. you know, from the White House.
- [49:16]
Harry Littman
And not only in the tent. I think this administration that has done some serious malfeasance in the small circle who are there.
- [49:25]
Connor Lamb
No, well, remember that the, the one who this didn't work with was Marjorie Taylor Greene and she's out there with a massive, massive online following. And in the beginning hours of the Iran invasion, she was hammering the administration on it, which that's kind of what they're paying attention to. If you're getting online flack from within your own movement, that's like the worst case scenario for them. So they don't want, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene reaching out to nomen saying, man, they cast the women aside on this team, don't they? Why don't you, you know, sort of come with me. They want to prevent that.
- [49:55]
Harry Littman
All right. And now just finally, you know, the first domino has fallen. Are we going to see, I mean there's five, six people who I think wouldn't have lasted in a different administration, maybe including Trump 1.0. But Hegseth, Kennedy, Patel, you know, possibly others. Do we think it's a one shot deal or are you looking at this point for more firings?
- [50:22]
Mara Liasson
Well, you're fired is Trump's trademark, so you'd think there would be more. But he also doesn't like to look like somebody forced his hand. So he doesn't like to fire people under public pressure. You know, Patel could be, you could make the argument that he's somebody who's caused some problems. But because this is such a Trump centric administration, it's all about him. There is no National Security Council. There is no process. There's pretty much, as he puts it himself, my feeling or my opinion. So I don't know if we're going to see a lot of firings. It's all about Trump.
- [50:57]
Jonathan Alter
I think the Democrats want to impeach some of these characters next year. They're not going to go after Trump for a third time, but they're likely to try to impeach and then put them on, you know, put Pam Bondi on trial in the Senate.
- [51:10]
Harry Littman
I think she's a name that would figure high on the betting board. They are doing so many controversial things and she's the face of it. And reportedly the White House has no love lost for her. So that would be a big one. Really big one. Okay, final thoughts about the kind of state of the Cabinet. What happens now that we've seen the first break in the dam?
- [51:35]
Jonathan Alter
You know, the one name that we haven't mentioned so far, it starts with an E, you know, and we will be back to Epstein. And a lot of this, pretty much everything that Trump does, you have to see through an Epstein window, and it's an Overton window, too, you know, and there's a lot of shoes to drop in that case. There's a my important Miami Herald piece about this minor who accuses Trump and Epstein of rape. And some more documents are coming out, some haven't been released of the FBI interviews of this young woman. It's hard to believe that just because she committed some crimes when she was a very young person, that that would discredit her entire story on its face, which is what the White House's position is right now. So we're not done with Epstein. To me, Epstein is. Herpes just keeps coming back.
- [52:38]
Harry Littman
I very much agree and Connor might agree here. It's also when you have anyone come in and tell us anything, you do get a lot of not credible allegations, but just that the DOJ had to today release. Oops, here's three new FBI 302s. We thought they were duplicates. They happen to be the one with exactly these allegations about Trump. So they themselves, I think, have ensured the perpetuation that herpes will come back around. We just have a minute for our five words or fewer features. So I wanted to go the oral argument in the Supreme Court last week, and there was a lot of discussion about the drinking habits of the Founding Fathers. This for the testing of a law that says people who use drugs can't have guns. So we were instructed that John Adams took a flagon of ale every day with breakfast. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. So the Queen Question for us all to answer in five words or fewer. If the founders were alive today, what would they be drinking with their breakfast?
- [53:46]
Mara Liasson
Well, I think the founders would be very health conscious and maybe they'd have non alcoholic drinks with their breakfast. So my five words are a nice big healthy smoothie.
- [53:58]
Harry Littman
There you go. Yerba mate. Oh, John's counting.
- [54:03]
Jonathan Alter
Okay. I just wanted to make sure it was five words. So under Trump they'd drink arsenic. They'd be so appalled at what this man was doing to the Constitution that they would go the way of Cato. Yeah, you know, and various other figures from the ancient world and commit suicide.
- [54:22]
Harry Littman
There you have it.
- [54:23]
Connor Lamb
Yeah, I was kind of going in the same direction. I didn't go all the way to suicide, but I was going to say hard stuff out of disappointment because I just think that they would be so disappointed with what has become of their original intentions that they would have to drink even more than they did, apparently, back then.
- [54:38]
Harry Littman
There you have it. And I take in on the same spectrum. Also a middle ground, cold brew and constitutional anxiety. Thank you so much Jonathan Connor and Michael Mara. And thank you very much listeners for tuning in to Talking Feds. If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review the show. Check us out on substack@harrylitman.substack.com where I'll be posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threads, threats to constitutional norms, and the rule of law. Paid Substack subscribers can now get Talking Feds episodes completely ad free. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube, where we are posting full episodes and my daily takes on top legal stories. Talking Feds has joined forces with the Contrarian. I'm a founding contributor to this bold new media venture, committed to reviving the diversity of opinion that feels increasingly rare in today's news landscape, where legacy media seems to be tacking toward Trump for business reasons rather than editorial ones. Find out more@contrarian.substack.com thanks for tuning in. And don't worry, as long as you need answers, the Feds will keep talking. Talking Feds is produced by Luke Cregan and Katie Upshaw, Associate Producer Becca Haveian sound Engineering by Matt McArdle, Rosie Dawn Griffin, David Lieberman, Hansam Hadranathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are our contributing writers and production assistants. By Akshaj Turbailu A few more thanks this week. Thanks to Julie Cohen and Andrea Ashworth for their continued brainstorming and to the inimitable Philip Glass for his concert for Tibet. Thanks also to Zachary Jessner. Our music, as ever, is by the amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Doledo llc. See? I'm Harry Littman. Talk to you later.