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Gab Tech
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Gab Tech
From executive producer.
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Brooke Devart
Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.
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Isaac Saul
Foreign. Good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac. So and today you're going to get a lot of me. All me. It's just me here today with you on the show, and we're doing something a little bit special. So a couple weeks ago I wrote and we published a podcast here about five things I had gotten wrong about Donald Trump in his first six months in office. In all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of political prognostication. I mean, I often try to avoid making predictions about the future because I think there's just something kind of gimmicky about that and instead focus on my analysis and reporting and talking about what we know and what's in front of us. Obviously, predictions inevitably slip into that analysis or into my take in the newsletter. And I've written explicit articles where, you know, I made 19 predictions about the future of Politics because I understand they're interesting and they're good ways to kind of test my theses about the world. In my last retrospective, like many others I'd written before it, it was an exercise in the kind of accountability and analytical journalism that we do here at Tangle. I am a big fan of writing about when I'm wrong, or when I've changed my mind, or when I have valuable criticisms to share. I think it helps me evolve and it helps our readers reflect on their viewpoints too. But shortly after publishing that piece, I kind of realized that I spend a lot of time writing about all the things I get wrong and maybe not enough time writing about when I get things right. After all, if I am simply wrong over and over and over, should listeners really trust me for reliable analysis? It struck me that in trying to be transparent with criticisms, I may be undermining my own credibility. Indeed, a lot of readers and my own editors insisted that I could be doing this too much. So today I figured I'd flip the script. I'll give myself some grace, and I'll do something I've never done before. I'm going to pen an entire piece. I'm going to write this whole show that's just about the things that I've gotten right since my newsletter and the podcast a few weeks ago focused exclusively on Trump. I thought I'd turn the focus to the same subject and share five things that I've gotten right about Trump's second term so far. Before I jump in, a quick reminder that this podcast is a members only podcast. So somewhere when I'm talking in here, John's gonna fade out the music and then he's gonna tell you that you have to go become a member to subscribe. So if you wanna hear the whole thing, you have to go to readtangle.com membership. When you buy a membership, it'll take you through this process that should be relatively easy where you add the paid members only feed to your podcast feed. You click a couple buttons, get one email, and then the feed will show up wherever you listen to podcasts. And you won't just get all our members only content. You also get ad free podcasts from the Daily, which a lot of people really like. So go do that. It's readtangle.com membership. There should be a link in the episode description and that is the quickest way to unlock the whole show. All right, with that, I'm going to just jump in. All right, so first up on the five things that I got right about Donald Trump was that Pete Hegseth was a dangerous and poor choice for defense secretary. When I reviewed Trump's Cabinet appointees, Hegseth was probably the person I was most concerned about. Hegseth got a lot of heat during his confirmation process because he was the, quote unquote, Fox News guy who got tapped to lead the armed forces. This characterization was true, but it was also insufficient. Hegseth rose to the rank of major as an Army National Guard officer. He served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was awarded two Bronze Stars. He earned a Master of Public Policy from Harvard. After his second deployment, he led two nonprofit veterans advocacy groups. Then he worked as a Fox News host for more than a decade. Which is all to say, he had plenty more on his resume than just being a television host. A better criticism of Hegseth, and the primary one that I leveled against him, is that dysfunction had followed him everywhere he went. I was not overtly concerned that he was under qualified compared to his predecessors or that he was unfaithful to his wives, something that Democrats spent a lot of time on during his confirmation hearing. I was concerned that he had a terrible reputation as a leader of relatively small organizations and was now being tasked with leading almost 3 million service members and DoD civilians. Here's an excerpt of my take after Hegseth's confirmation hearing. As I've said in the past, we as Americans have been remarkably safe in the post 911 era from foreign threats, and we are totally unaware of how good we have it here in the US Our soldiers are in about as little danger as they've ever been in my lifetime. We're pulling back from many major conflicts, and the vast majority of the issues facing our Department of Defense involve wasteful spending, inventory issues, shaky leadership, and the fact we are falling behind on advanced military technology. I don't see any reason to believe that Hegseth, who has a leader of several smaller, less complicated organizations, has been followed by allegations of poor leadership, disorganization, sexual misconduct, poor financial management, and drunkenness is the right person to solve these issues. End quote. I also noted that Hegseth had a genuinely bad hearing. He couldn't name any international security agreements he would lead as Defense secretary incorrectly guessed several members of the association of the Southeast Asian nations was non committal about using the US Military against US Civilians and seemed to think the military has quotas for demographic groups, which it doesn't. Though diversity in the military has been a point of emphasis for the DoD during the Biden administration, Hegseth's track record followed him into leadership at the DoD. Hegseth was the central figure in one of the largest scandals of the administration so far, in which a journalist was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat where attack plans for a strike in Yemen were discussed in extensive detail. Just this week, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon's independent watchdog has evidence that the information Hegseth shared in the Signal chat was indeed classified, contradicting his and the White House's claims. We then learn that Hegseth and others in his orbit were in more Signal chats sharing privileged information. Hegseth refused to take any accountability for this and instead tried to throw several team members under the bus. Since then, Hegseth's department has been in complete disarray. Justin Fulcher, a top advisor, just left the Pentagon, marking the sixth major recent departure following a series of scandals and leaks. In January, former chief Pentagon spokesman John Oliott argued unequivocally that Hegseth was the best man for the job. By late April, he was penning op ed for Politico, arguing unequivocally that Hegseth should step down or be fired. Oliot saw Hegseth's leadership up close and in person as a top aide, and he came away feeling deeply concerned about the risk it posed to the country. So why hasn't Hegseth been fired? Well, I predicted that too, writing in April that Trump would refuse to fire him for his incompetence because that'd be giving a scalp to his critics and the media, which he is always loath to do. On all this, my views about Hegseth were basically right on, and his term as defense secretary has gone just as I expected. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Here's a stat that stops people in their tracks. Nearly half of American adults say that they would suffer financial hardship within six months if they lost their primary income earner. 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Balance of Nature
Imagine a toilet so striking it inspired a couture dress. That's right, kohlersvale Smart Toilet in Honed Black actually inspired fashion designer Laura Kim to create a stunning black chiffon dress that debuted on the Runway at New York Fashion Week. The Vail Smart Toilet, with its curved design, deep, rich textural color, touchscreen controls and customizable cleansing features, can transform your routine into something extraordinary. That's the power of design. Design changes everything. Vail Smart Toilet in Honed Black only from Kohler Discover the Vail Smart Toilet and go behind the scenes of Kohler's partnership with Creative Director Laura Kim@kohler.com.
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Isaac Saul
Number two I was right about Trump and Israel One of the more bizarre things that happened during the 2024 election was the way the pro Palestine movement rallied around Trump and against the Biden Harris administration. The uncommitted vote in Michigan was the center of this story, with groups of pro Palestine Arab Americans pledging either to vote for Trump or not vote for Harris. While praising the uncommitted vote for smart politics in our coverage, I also warned supporters of the Palestine Liberation Movement that their support for Trump was nonsensical. Harris has been tough to pin down on this issue, but Trump is not, I wrote. As President Trump moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli control of the Golan Heights, and was called by Benjamin Netanyahu the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House. As a candidate, Trump has consistently voiced his support of Israel's right to defend itself and said he'd deport anti Israel protesters. There is no way that voters concerned with the safety of Gazans will be able to exert more pressure on a President Trump than a President Harris. I understand why they feel hopeless with the current administration, but I also don't see a world where they get anything they want with Trump. End quote. Then, in January, after the Trump and Biden administration collectively negotiated a ceasefire deal this was before Trump got into office. I said that I was skeptical that the deal would last, but also reflected on this segment of my take and the protest movement more broadly. If this deal holds, I wrote, again, if it will also reflect poorly on me, I wrote repeatedly that the Arab American voters in Michigan and across the US who opposed Harris or outright supported Trump in protest of Biden's handling of the war, would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps my view there proves accurate in the long run, I said. I still believe Trump is a staunchly pro Israel president whose interests are diametrically opposed to the Palestinian liberation. But if Trump begins his term by helping negotiate an end to this war, I'll be eating some crow and those voters will have both increased their political power and gotten the result they wanted. Unfortunately, my initial view here has proven accurate in the long run. That January ceasefire I was writing about collapsed after its first phase. Rather than exerting more pressure on Israel, Trump is effectively greenlit whatever Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn up, despite frustration emanating from the Trump camp. Since taking office, Trump has endorsed plans to relocate all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is an argument for ethnic cleansing. There is no other word for it. I'm sorry. And while he's reportedly griped about Netanyahu privately in public, Trump has remained steadfast in his support, even taking the major step of helping Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Many of the uncommitted voters have noticed. In February, one of the key groups to Trump's voter outreach for the uncommitted movement in Michigan, officially named Arab Americans for Trump, dropped Trump from their name and updated the organization to Arab Americans for Peace. That was just after Trump hosted Netanyahu at the White House and proposed developing Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle east under US Ownership. Meanwhile, Trump has detained and attempted to deport students who have supported Gaza as he promised while campaigning. And he has punished universities where pro Palestine protests and in his telling, anti Semitism have proliferated. And the horrors of the war in Gaza have only gotten worse with no end in sight. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break.
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Gab Tech
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Brooke Devart
Hi Brooke Devart here, host of Naked Beauty Every week I talk to my audience about beauty and self care. I'm someone who spends a lot of time in the bathroom. It is truly my sanctuary. So investing in a smart toilet from Kohler has been life changing. The Kohler Vail smart toilet has a heated seat, hands free opening of the lid and customizable bidet functionality. It is incredible, but beyond the technology, the design is just stunning. The veil's curved silhouette in honed black actually inspired creative director and fashion designer Laura Kim to create a stunning black chiffon dress that debuted on the Runway at New York Fashion Week. The creative partnership between Kohler and Laura Kim is changing how we think about everyday objects like a toilet. Transform your routine into something extraordinary with the Kohler veil. Smart toilet.
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Isaac Saul
Foreign that brings me to number three. Protester confrontations with federal agents during immigration raids have been commonplace. In November, after the Trump won the presidency, I shared 22 thoughts about his victory. Many of them I actually think have aged quite well. You can go listen to that podcast if you'd like, but one in particular stuck out to me is a theme I've been discussing in the months since since in item number six I said if he Trump attempts a mass deportation, I think we'll see civil disobedience and violence unlike anything we saw during his first term. His brand of politics invites people to relish in the misery of others a kind of own the libs and destroy the enemy mentality. That I think is going to bring us four more years of increasingly awful divisions and then especially bad environment for trans people or immigrants who became the focus of his campaign's Ireland. I thought this one would be interesting to include, in part because in the five Things I Got Wrong About Trump podcast, I covered the same topic through the lens of what I got wrong. Basically, I copped to thinking that the Trump administration's deportation effort would be smaller and less horrific than it has been so far. I didn't think Trump would actually do the things he said he was going to do, but he has a few weeks after warning about what would happen in Trump is tolerance policy.
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John Law
Hey everybody, this is John, Executive Producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest Friday edition. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com and sign up for a newsletter subscription. Or you can sign up for a podcast subscription or a bundled subscription, which gets you both the podcast and the newsletter and unlocks the rest of this episode as well as ad free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews and so much more. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings, so stay tuned. I will join you for the the Daily Podcast on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a fantastic weekend, y'.
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Isaac Saul
All.
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John Law
Peace.
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Isaac Saul
Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive Producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by John Wall. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75 and John Law. And to learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.