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- [00:01]
Podcast Host (Ad Read)
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- [00:39]
Commercial Announcer
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- [01:07]
Alex Wagner
Refreshers contain caffeine hi everyone, we are a nation back at war. A very half baked ceasefire from last month has crumbled and conflict with Iran is now in full swing. It's unclear how much this war is actually costing American taxpayers, but it is definitely a whole lot because the Pentagon's current budget of $1 trillion is apparently not enough, according to the Trump administration. Here's Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on the Hill on Tuesday.
- [01:38]
Paul Rieckhoff
Not funding this department at 1.5 trillion, I believe, is the greatest threat that our nation faces.
- [01:44]
Alex Wagner
Yes, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth want $1.5 trillion for the defense budget, and that is trillion with a T. As for the war in Iran, Specifically, Hegseth and company are now begging Congress for another 60 billion, just like the rest of us. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who sits on the Senate committee that approves all this spending, she wants to know what the hell is going on. The reason why they are so upset with you and this administration is because the words you have used in the past don't add up. It's either over or it's not over. It's within two weeks or it's not two weeks. We have no missiles or we have missiles. When it comes to the war in Iran, critical information remains locked in a very black box. At that same Senate hearing this week, Pete Hegseth announced that the war had cost American taxpayers $37.5 billion. But that figure is probably wildly inaccurate and may not even cover the cost of damage done to American military bases in the region. After all, in just the first six days of this conflict, according to Reuters, the war cost at least $11.3 billion. So you do the math there. But the information blackout here isn't just about money. The American public is being denied basic facts about the human toll of this war. This week, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon hid military injuries caused by undisclosed Iran strikes. As recently as this week, the Pentagon's own database was using outdated and inaccurate information about the number of American soldiers who had been injured or killed in the war. There has been no standard review of the American military strike on an Iranian school that kill 168 children back in March. In other words, the cost in both dollars and lives of a conflict that 68% of the public thinks is not worth fighting. All of that remains shrouded in secrecy. And it is all part of a broader strategy in the Trump White House to either lie or hide the information when it becomes inconvenient. When ICE killed two unarmed migrants last month, the Trump administration informed federal agents that the FBI will no longer be investig investigating ICE confrontations. When the New York Times reported on significant security concerns over the President's new plane, the one donated by the Qatari government, the Justice Department began investigating the reporters who broke that story over and over again. Whenever there is conflict, whenever there is scandal, whenever the facts threaten the President's political agenda, the Trump White House has one plan and one plan only. Keep the country in the dark. I'm Alex Wagner and this week on Runaway country, the great cover up happening inside our government. We are talking to Maggie Haberman, a New York Times White House correspondent who with Jonathan Swan, recently published Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Maggie is the expert when it comes to the black box of Trump 2.0. But first, how is the secrecy around the Iran war sitting with the people who have actually served the country? We're talking to two veterans, Paul Reichoff from Independent Veterans of America and host of the very good podcast Independent Americans and Rebecca Roberts from About Face Veterans who was a member of the army national guard until 2023 when she resigned over objections to the Gaza genocide. We are going to get their perspectives on the information blackout over the real toll of this conflict. Here's our conversation. I am very eager to hear thoughts from you, Paul and Rebecca. This is the first time we've had a twofer at the beginning of the show. And I know you guys both have a lot of experience in this area. You're both veterans and you both are very much still tied to the veterans community. So let's just get into it. There has been a lot going on in terms of this administration speaking publicly, if not accurately, about this war. I first want to get your thoughts on a remarkable exchange that happened yesterday between Secretary of Defense, I refuse to call him Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, which kind of gets at the central question of like, what is the point of this war? Are we winning it? And if so, what if we won? I just want to get your reactions on the other side of this. So let's take a listen first.
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Senator Gary Peters
You, sir, are the failure, not the
- [06:23]
Paul Rieckhoff
men and women who are on that
- [06:24]
Senator Gary Peters
front line, not the men and women who hold up their honor with distinction. But if there's a lack of a winning strategy, they're in harm's way. Their leaders have failed them. And that's what's happening. We have political leadership. You, you don't have a strategy. You don't have a long term plan to actually win this war. Win the war. The men and women are going to be able to do it, but they need to have leadership.
- [06:47]
Paul Rieckhoff
You want to stand up here and talk about the troops, you won't show any political courage to actually fund our department because you have Trump derangement syndrome and can't actually commit to anything meaningful. So I put this on you, Senator
- [06:58]
Senator Gary Peters
Secretary Hegsev, you have trillions. You have over a trillion dollars. You're asking for one and a half trillion dollars. It's not a question of money, it's a question of leadership.
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Alex Wagner
All right, Rebecca, let me start with you. First of all, what do you make about the. I guess the idea there is, if you're in the Trump administration and you hear criticisms or skepticism about the funding of this war or the war itself, you, derangement syndrome, and you don't support the troops, what do you think?
- [07:25]
Rebecca Roberts
I mean, to me, that's a clear deflection, a way of avoiding taking any accountability. You know, you have Pete Higseth sitting there asking for nearly $70 million more.
- [07:37]
Senator Gary Peters
Billion.
- [07:38]
Rebecca Roberts
Yeah, yeah. For this war. And you know the math. To me, the math isn't mathing right. They, they've said through September 30th, I think it'll cost close to 40 million or 40 billion for this war. But the numbers really aren't adding up. And I know as someone who led troops on a deployment, I would never feel comfortable leading anyone into war or following a leader into war without clear objectives and a clear strategy. And they have flip flopped, changed the story, changed the objective so many times that the average American citizen or even troop has no idea what's actually going on.
- [08:20]
Alex Wagner
I mean, it's so crazy, Paul, to me, that if you're serving in the military or recently served, to say nothing of the citizens who are also paying for this, you can't explain the objective. Like, we're months into this. They're asking for another $70 billion on top of what they want to be a $1.5 trillion defense budget. And you cannot get the secretary of defense to explain why this is being fought. What did you think of Hegseth's bombast and all that?
- [08:50]
Paul Rieckhoff
Pete Hegseth sucks. He sucks. He's so fucking terrible. He's outrageous. He's unqualified. And I've known him for 20 years. I've actually fought this fight with Pete Hegseth for 20 years. We did this on Hardball with Chris Matthew 20 years ago, okay? And it's the same old shtick here, because it's blameless. It's confused the war with the warriors, right? And after Vietnam, we worked so hard to separate the war from the war, to say you could support the people without supporting the policy. And this is the oldest trick in the book. This is melding the two and saying, oh, you're a spineless, wimpy Democrat. You don't love the troops, and I'm an independent, so I'm going to call balls and strikes here. Another important factor. Senator Peters served in the reserves. He didn't say it. Hegseth didn't say it. But Peters has served in uniform himself. So Hegseth loves to play this game of moral high ground, and it's not even deflection. I think Rebecca's onto it. But he is what I've always called the acting Secretary of Culture War. That is his job. He is the tip of the spear on the culture war, and he pulls his tricks out. The same tricks all the time. But yesterday he had a very different perspective. His shoulders were lower. He's begging for money because he circumvented Congress. He didn't give a shit what they had to say. He and Trump were middle fingers up and all gas, no brakes. Now there's some checks and balances finally kicking in. I wish it wasn't next to the Agriculture Secretary, who's also talking about meatpacking, right? And they're not talking about the human cost. But I think this was a really bad moment for Hegseth in a slew of bad moments. But this is also vintage Hegseth. You cannot trust him. He is a liar. He will lie about casualty figures, ask his two ex wives, he's lied to his ex wives, he's lied his whole life. He's been a shape shifter and right now it's on display for the whole world to see and it's for the most serious stakes possible where they can't even get the numbers of wounded. Right, Right. The New York Times reporting was very revealing. I think the senators should have come harder at him on that from the beginning and asked him, why the fuck can't you get the numbers right? Why are you playing games with casualty numbers? Because they do the same with ICE numbers, with deportation numbers, with crowd size numbers. You can't trust them on anything and you especially can't trust them on war.
- [11:05]
Alex Wagner
I want to talk about the human toll. First of all, I just want to say what a pleasure it is to have Paul Rykoff uncorked on a podcast where he can finally drop as many F bombs as he wants to. Cuz we've done a lot of TV together, Paul, and I feel like I'm getting the unfiltered good stuff right now. Anyway, that aside, you know, this would be a disastrous war on a sort of financial level, just in terms of the cost. It would be disastrous in terms of foreign policy. It is shredding whatever's left of the, of goodwill towards America and shredding the global economy. But it a moral catastrophe as well. Paul. And you brought up the fallen soldiers. Donald Trump, unusually, I believe, is on his way to Dover, Delaware this morning. We're recording this Wednesday afternoon and was asked about the fallen soldiers whose bodies he will greet in Delaware as they come back home. This is what Donald Trump said about those soldiers just a few moments ago.
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Senator Gary Peters
They said, and all of them said
- [12:07]
Paul Rieckhoff
very strongly, we can't let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.
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Commercial Announcer
They won't have a nuclear weapon, so
- [12:15]
Alex Wagner
we're going to honor them. They said very strongly, Rebecca, the fallen soldiers, that we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Maybe some of them did, I don't know. But to put convenient words in the mouths of the fallen, when most people in the. And I would say, as we discussed armed services or even the American public, can't tell you really what the objective here is. Seems like a desecration of their memories writ large. What's your reaction to the suggestion that everyone's in this war to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon?
- [12:52]
Rebecca Roberts
Yeah, I mean, one of the first things I thought about when I heard about Private Isabella Gonzalez, who was killed was where was I when I Joined when I was 17. I was not thinking about if Iran had nuclear weapons. I was thinking about, I want to pay for college. I come from a low income family. My mother was an immigrant who for a long time was undocumented. And I was thinking about this is a way to make it in the world. And at the time I just truly believed I was doing something noble, being a part of something bigger than myself. And I'm thinking about, you know, this 19 year old who is, is now dead and for what? You know, we talk about sacrifice and honoring their deaths. The way to honor their death is to never, never have another death in this war. To not add to this number of 18 troops who are now made 17 families into gold star families. So if Congress wants to protect the troops, it should refuse this funding and it should bring them home. And I'm also thinking about Private Gonzalez. Her family are probably the same people who are being chased down by ice in our streets right now. And that is just not a way to honor. And I think there's a connection to be made there.
- [14:13]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, Paul, I mean, you talked about the, I won't say obfuscation, but the lies, the misinformation in terms of the collateral damage here, the human cost of this. The New York Times reported that four more U.S. service members were killed in the war and the Pentagon was withholding information about that and dozens of injuries. The Pentagon was kind of going back and forth about whether they were updating their database with the accurate numbers of the old out of date numbers. The President and his Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon do not want you talking about the death of Isabella Gonzalez. They do not want you talking about who died and how they died and whether or not they were protected. Does this work? Does the strategy of like the black box around casualties work in politically for Trump, or do you think the American public is onto it?
- [15:04]
Paul Rieckhoff
It works in dictatorships. And that's where he's taking a page from. This is propaganda 101. And maybe some of the most dastardly and at times effective propaganda is to speak on behalf of the dead. And every despot's done this since the beginning of time. They died for Rome, they died for America, they died for whatever, right? You don't know what they died for. They died for their brothers and sisters. Some of them signed up because they needed college money. There's a million reasons why people join, but you can never assume that they are down for your cause or down for you. Right? And that's what bad politicians do, is Manipulate that. And what's really sinister about it, Alex, that I don't think gets enough attention, is that it combines the politics and the military in a way where some people think it is Trump's military. They believe it and they say, you know what? It is his military. If you've joined now, you must agree with what he says. When I got home from Iraq, somebody said to me once, you didn't fight for me, you fought for George Bush. Right? And some people do get it confused, especially now when Hegseth has driven so many people out who are people of color, women, trans people, Right. It is becoming more and more like the MAGA army, and that is very, very dangerous. But that's also been a strategy. So they want people who are on board, and if you're not on board, they don't want you in this military. You know, now they're gonna do testosterone testing, they're doing religious testing, essentially. I mean, it's becoming more and more like the MAGA army, which is really, really dangerous and for our national security and for our men and women uniform. But here's what always happens. At some point, a mom or a dad speaks out, or a cousin or an uncle or somebody says, you know what? She didn't die for you, she died for this. Or she. Or she believed in this, or she didn't remember Pat Tillman, right? When they used Pat Tillman as propaganda and his friends spoke out, his family spoke out, this can blow up. The question is, can we amplify it at the same level? And unfortunately we can't. But we do need to hold him accountable. And remember, Trump's not visiting wounded. He won't go to Walter Reed. You'll never see him with wounded. You'll see him doing the majesty of receiving them at Dover and looking. You will never see him on one knee talking to a troop who just got their leg blown off. Because he doesn't want that human cost of war. And very rarely do you see him with women either, Right? Even at the UFC fight, all of the high esteemed Medal of Honor recipients and first responders who escorted fighters to the ring were all men. There were no women there. So he doesn't wanna talk about the 19 year old female private who might look like your daughter, because he knows that also has a special emotional resonance. He wants you to think that everybody in the military looks like Pete HEGSETH, looks like RFK Jr. And they're an army of loyalists, and they're not. The military is very diverse. And you'll see more and more of them speak out. And I also think we really need to hear from people like CQ Brown. We need to hear from General Donohue. Too many generals who've left are doing this thing where they say, oh, I'm not gonna break glass, I'm not gonna speak out. This moment requires them to speak out. This is exceptional. We must hear from them now.
- [17:55]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, I mean, you're so right about visiting the wounded. We know that Trump has a preternatural distaste for anybody who has been disfigured or disabled by war because it stirs up, it conjures up the fundamental reality of mortality for him. I think, I mean, whatever. I'm playing armchair psychologist. Who can know what happens in the mind of malignant. Our narcissist. But you're right. As commander in chief, he does not tend to the wounded the way I think he ethically should. More from veterans and advocates Rebecca Roberts and Paul Reichoff right after the break. Runaway country is brought to you by Miracle Maid. Here's a gross fact I know you need more of them. Traditional bed sheets can hold more bacteria than a toilet seat. Yeah, that is not exactly what you want to lay your face on. And Miracle made bedding is designed to fight bacteria and stay cleaner longer. With silver infused fabrics that actually provide Prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth. Miracle made sheets stay cleaner and fresher up to three times longer than regular sheets. That means fewer odors, fewer wash cycles, and way less laundry. They feel good, if not better than sheets you'd find at a five star hotel, but without the steep price tag. Smooth, breathable and ridiculously comfortable. Upgrade your sleep or give the gift of better rest. Go to trymiracle.com Alex to try miracle made sheets today you'll save over 40%. And when you use promo code Alex Alex. You'll get an extra 20% off plus a free three piece towel set. They make an amazing gift and with a 30 day money back guarantee, there is no risk. That's trymiracle.com Alex Code A L E X at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode, Runaway country is brought to you by ActBlue. If you have been listening to this podcast, you already know the stakes. ActBlue is a platform that's been powering Democratic campaigns for over two decades, giving candidates up and down the ballot the tools they need to fundraise, organize, build websites and win. And this year, they've launched an organizing platform built specifically for the people doing the work. ActBlue field tools taking back the House and winning local elections across the country doesn't start in October. It happens now in the doors knocked and phone calls made by volunteers this summer. That energy is out there and ActBlue Field Tools is built to mobilize it at scale. It's already helped more than 350,000 volunteers get to work across all 50 states handling texting, phone banking and canvassing so your team can focus on what actually moves voters, meaningful conversations with real people. Plus, all of the features work together in one platform, making it easier than ever to mobilize your community wherever you are. ActBlue never sells your data or personal information so you can stay focused on what matters most. Donating, organizing and helping Democrats win this November. The elections could come down to just a few hundred votes. The work that wins those races starts this summer. And it starts with you. Get started@actblue.com Crooked Rebecca the Pentagon does not like the assertion that this administration is trying to cover up the human toll of this war. The Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell issued a statement after the New York Times reporting came out. And this is it. I'll just read an excerpt. The Department of War rejects baseless and malicious accusations of hiding injury numbers as outright lies from partisan hacks at the New York Times who are desperate to smear America's military and its leadership. Injuries in the military encompass everything from minor sprained ankles during routine training to incidents entirely unrelated to combat operations. Cherry picking raw numbers without context paints a deliberately misleading and incomplete picture. So basically, Rebecca, we are to believe that when you report on the injured, it's just mostly spray, it's sprained ankles. It would be an overstatement statement about how dangerous it is to be in the US Military right now.
- [21:57]
Rebecca Roberts
I mean, I would say the administration is the one who is cherry picking statistics here. They, it's clear they've gone back and forth. I don't feel clear on how many troops have been injured. You know, we say around 100, but that's, that's an estimate. And it's just, it's disgusting that they, they would do this with troops lives, not just, you know, the risk of death, but that changes your life forever, whether it's, you know, the moral injury or the physical injury. And for us not to, you know, to know and have a government that's being transparent about a war that our taxpayers, our taxpayer dollars are going towards is really concerning. It's really concerning to me. And I think that, you know, we are asking Congress to do three things about this, which is no authorization for this war, no funding, and bring the troop troops home. And I also think that every member of Congress needs to ask themselves, do you want to be remember as too cowardly to take a stand, or do you want to be remembered for having a conscience and protecting our troops? And in doing that, that requires transparency with the American people.
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Alex Wagner
Yeah, I mean, I will say, this is so crazy. One of the ways in which Trump points to this war being a success is by pointing to the number of casualties. Because it's. I'll just read the Truth Social. On Tuesday, he posted this. Afghanistan War, 20 years, 2,000 dead. Iraq War, 9 years, 4,600 dead. Vietnam War, 19 years and 5 months, 58,220 dead. Korean War, 3 years and 1 month, 36,574 dead. Venezuela War. Side note, I didn't know we were fighting a war with Venezuela. One day, zero dead. That figure may also not be accurate. Iran military conflict. Just to be clear, we fought a war with Venezuela, but what we're doing in Iran is a military conflict without congressional authorization. Four months, 18 dead. How do you feel, Rebecca, about those comparisons? Do they make a compelling case to you?
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Rebecca Roberts
Not at all. Service members are not just numbers. I think this, this really minimizes the loss of life. And I also think this ignores something really important, which are, you know, the deaths of non Americans. You know, the Iraq war, there was over a million deaths. This to me shows that this administration clearly values the lives of Americans more than anyone else. And I don't think that that's, that's an immoral take to say that our lives are worth more than the lives
- [24:46]
Maggie Haberman
of or shouldn't even count.
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Alex Wagner
Like, I mean, I think Trump would be up there saying American lives matter more. And I think there's probably some Americans who would say, ye, yeah, they do. But the reality is when you're counting casualties, you have to count all the bodies, not just the ones you like.
- [25:01]
Rebecca Roberts
Absolutely.
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Alex Wagner
So Trump is taking to Truth Social to compare the numbers of casualties in this war to previous wars, and obviously the casualty number is considerably smaller. Though he doesn't call it a war, he calls Iran a military conflict. But it sort of sidesteps the point that at least with those other wars, generally speaking, and I'm not a neocon hawk, you could explain America's strategic interest in it and what the goal was, even if that was founded on lies. And it was. Maybe it was ill advised to begin with. Nonetheless, is it a fair comparison to compare the Korean War for Example to the war in Iran. And does that hold sway, do you think, with people inside the military?
- [25:50]
Paul Rieckhoff
Not a fair comparison. Does not hold sway. A really bad game to play. Because what I don't know if he's gonna do is actually meet with the families of the folks at Dover. Like, sometimes he does. Sometimes you just shake a hand, you move on. But, like, Bush and Obama and Biden used to spend time with them in a room, right? And he'd hear their stories and absorb that human loss. I don't think Trump's gonna do that. He might. I don't know. Or they might select and figure out who's a Trump supporter and only have the them meet with them. But you never diminish a human casualty at all, period. Right? Stand across from a mother or a father and tell them that their kid didn't matter or that the numbers were small. To every community, to every family, that is an unimaginable loss. I always encourage people to think about if it was your kid or your parent or your sibling, because everyone is so devastating. And we had to fight for decades just to increase the service members group life insurance, because when I signed up, I think it was a quarter million dollars. Now it's over a million dollars. I mean, there have been problems with taking care of our wounded, obviously, but even taking care of our dead. So only somebody who's never served themselves, whose kids don't serve, would be so cavalier about it. And I know it gets thrown around as an attack, but I do think it's important. Where the fuck is Barron Trump? He can serve. He's of age, right? And he's not too tall or too cool or too rich or whatever. Ivanka could have served, and she didn't. Kushner could have served and he didn't. And now you have a new generation, and if it matters so much, put your kid in. Put your kid into the fight. And I don't think he gets called on that enough. Where is Baron? Why isn't he walking down to the recruiting station if this war is such a great idea?
- [27:26]
Alex Wagner
Well, I mean, I think probably in part because Trump knows it's unsafe to fight in war. And the more we learn about these casualties, the more there are real questions about whether the US Government is keeping troops as safe as they should be. I mean, there's. There's the strike in Kuwait at the start of the war, which killed six troops. I think it was the deadliest part of the war so far. There's a lot of criticism that the troops didn't have proper drone defenses. There's criticism and skepticism about whether it's a good idea to spread troops out to temporary bases. I mean, have either one of you guys spoke with or do you have any connection to active duty service members who are worried about. I mean, first of all, war itself is perilous, but just the ability of the American government to keep troops as safe as it can, given the inherent risks of war. Rebecca?
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Rebecca Roberts
Yeah, I mean, about face. We do support for active service members. We have an encrypted form that they fill out and they get in touch with us, they reach out confidentially for. What are my legal rights? Are these orders legal? Why is this war happening? That's. That's things that they ask us. We're hearing from more of them than ever. Many of them deployed overseas, and there's really no clear justification. Congress never voted on this war. And these folks are people who join to serve something noble, and they're realizing that this really isn't it. And so we connect them with the legal experts in the community of veterans who have stood where they're standing now before because they should not be alone in this. And supporting the troops means being there for them no matter what choice they make with this. But we are hearing from them a lot of concern, whether it's about the Iran war or being deployed in our streets. I don't think extra funding for this. I don't even think service members are clear on why it's needed.
- [29:27]
Paul Rieckhoff
Alex. I'd echo that if I can. And I say, look, it's so much deja vu all over again. So my first public speech was in 2004, on the anniversary of the Mission Accomplished speech, where I challenged her. Right? And you know what we talked about a lack of body armor, how we had to up armor Humvees because we didn't have adequate. We didn't have enough water because they rushed us to war so quickly. And here we are again. It's the same shit. Now, instead of not preparing for IEDs and roadside bombs, they're not prepared for drones and missile attacks. Because the old saying is true. You often build the military for the last war, not the next war. You know, drones are obviously the most imminent threat now. That is the new normal. And we are not prepared, both offensively or defensively, for the kind of drone warfare that's not just coming, but is every day in Ukraine right now. So they are not prepared for that. And I think there's another piece that's really important. Their cultural approach to the Military is tough guys who love Jesus and love MAGA and love Trump, and if you don't do that, you're a pussy. Right. They also take the same approach to wounds because in the past, Donald Trump has dismissed traumatic brain injuries as just headaches. Or in these casualty reports, they're saying, well, some of them just had minor concussions. Well, minor concussions that aren't screened become serious traumatic brain injuries that could be debilitating, that could lead to a tremendous invisible cost that we're dealing with from Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, 20 years later, we've got people who are suffering with depression and debilitating traumatic brain injuries and suicide. It's all connected. So when he downplays it and says, you know, they just have headaches, when you get a minor head injury in Major League Baseball, you're out for three weeks. But we sent our young men and women right back to the front, it's because Trump fundamentally dismisses it and he wants to create this false bravado culture of machismo and manosphere and all that. But it's fake tough and most of all, it's stupid. Right. And it makes us less safe, it makes us less strong on a national security perspective. And it's also devastating recruiting. They can say what they want about the recruiting numbers. There's a lot of reasons why they're up, but they're also lowering standards. And a lot of people aren't tremendously eager to join this never ending war that could go on for potentially decades.
- [31:40]
Alex Wagner
Yeah. I mean, to that end, the numbers, the public approval numbers on this war are staggering. He has, on the war, he has a negative 30% approval rating. Even the Vietnam War, I believe, took six years for the public disapproval to sink in, to sink to those numbers. I mean, the rapidity with which his war of choice has absolutely cratered in terms of public support is a testament to how ill advised it is. And I would assume, I don't know, but like, Rebecca, you're talking to these people. Paul, you know, the veterans community. Well, if you are now part of the standing army that is fighting a war that literally nobody wants, that's gotta do something to troop morale, like, you gotta not feel that great about putting your life on the line for a war that the President is like, not that eager to talk about, where there's no strategic endgame and that the American public is onto it.
- [32:28]
Rebecca Roberts
Yeah, I mean, they, they said it themselves yesterday. I think Kegseth said, we're moving at the speed of business and we're running the Military like a business. Now, if I'm a troop and I hear that, and then I also see Trump, you know, putting out those numbers on true social. I'm saying, oh, so this is just an exchange. I'm part of a business exchange. Is that what my life is worth? That's what I'm getting from that. And the military should not be run like a business. We're talking about real human cost. And the average American, all that they know right now is that we can't afford gas. We can't afford, you know, so many of us are food insecure, our housing is ridiculous. How much has inflation gone up from, from this war? Those are the things that everyday Americans are worrying about. And they're so worried about those things, they don't have time to understand all this other bullshit that this administration is putting out.
- [33:25]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, I think the exact quote, Paul, is the Pentagon is no longer run by bureaucrats. Instead it's led by combat tech veterans and world class business leaders who are running the department like a business.
- [33:37]
Paul Rieckhoff
Was Lloyd Austin not a combat veteran? Right. Was General Mattis not a combat veteran? I mean, this is the sleight of hand they want you to believe. That is fundamentally bullshit and it's strategic. Right. It's a tired old strategy. But I do think you have to call them on a couple of other points that are really important too. You heard yesterday from the Agriculture Secretary talking about meat pattern. You know who you didn't hear from? The Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
- [34:01]
Senator Gary Peters
Yeah.
- [34:02]
Paul Rieckhoff
Where the fuck is Doug Collins, who is equally radical but much more below the radar? He denied the election. He's a Baptist minister. He doesn't believe in equal rights for women. He is the headset that you don't know about. And they are a dual prong of culture warriors that are attacking our military and veteran system. But Doug Collins isn't asking for more Veterans affairs funding or even for attention as we have a whole new generation coming home with a new slate of injuries that will likely be led by traumatic brain injury, will likely be a lot of invisible wars. Who knows what kind of new stuff we're gonna see. It took us 20 years to fight for adequate compensation for toxin exposures because they didn't believe that burn pits were gonna make us sick. So there will be new things. Right. And if they wanna be proactive, they'll have the VA secretary sitting right next to the Secretary of Defense saying, I'm gonna need some money too. Because it took us about 15 years after the start of the Iraq war to get the VA budget to even meet the current need. And it hasn't taken us to where we're gonna need to be in a. Going for, like, a traumatic brain injury is about a million dollars a year per person, per year to treat a traumatic brain injury. Scale that out, right? Let's say we have 400. Let's say we have a thousand. I'd at least like to hear what their strategy is to take care of these folks coming home. Because the reality is, is there ain't gonna be no parade, right? Like, maybe there'll be a MAGA parade with Dana White and Kid Rock, but the country is not dying to throw a parade for everyone, right? Because we thought that Vietnam was gonna be the lesson, right? And then that's the really. I think why the polling numbers are where they are in part, Alex, is because it's compounded, right? We saw this in Vietnam, we saw it in Iraq, we saw it in Afghanistan. We're fucking doing it again. The American public might be slow, but they're not stupid, and they're getting faster. So they know that this is another boondoggle, or what I've called a sucking chest wound that's pulling in our economy, our military, our politics, and it's not gonna go away until you pull the knife out of the wound. And that's where Trump is failing to move, and that's where I'm gonna challenge, especially Democrats. I know you're outraged. I know you're upset. I know you're infuriated. What are you doing to stop it? Because he's not gonna stop unless you make him stop.
- [36:11]
Alex Wagner
In the meantime, free testosterone shots for every male over the age of 30. That's the promise, I guess.
- [36:17]
Paul Rieckhoff
That's gonna recruit, by the way. Like, think about who's gonna join for
- [36:20]
Alex Wagner
that low T, dudes. I don't even. God, it always ends in testosterone, doesn't it? It just always end in. Ends in testicular atrophy. I'm sorry I had to say that. On this podcast, Rebecca Roberts and Paul Rykoff, I feel your rage, and I am right there with you guys. Thank you for offering really important, essential perspective on this. And thank you, Paul, for, I think, setting a record for expletives on this show. And it's a high bar. I'm super grateful. For real. We really, honestly, we fight wars, we make Americans do dangerous, deadly things in our name, and we rarely talk about those sacrifices. So it's a really important episode, and you guys are great, great, great voices on it. Thank you for your time.
- [37:09]
Paul Rieckhoff
Time thanks for focusing on it. Thank you, Rebecca.
- [37:12]
Rebecca Roberts
Thanks for having us.
- [37:13]
Alex Wagner
After the break, we will put all of this into context with the New York Times White House correspondent, the great Maggie Haberman. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. We talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard, and Better Help's latest research confirms it. Better Help's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. That is a big problem for this country. I love therapy. I think it's been great for me. I think it's been great for the people in my life and my community who have sought it out. And it's something that I hope can be available to everyone, both financially and socially. Getting help is just a way to live a better life, a happier Life. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com runawaycountry that's betterhelp.com Runaway country is brought to you by Mint Mobile. There are things in life that you just don't want to be transparent, like your swimsuit or your search history.
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Even unlimited. Mint Mobile took what is wrong with wireless and made it right with Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month. All the plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and phone number. Choose from 3, 6 or 12 month plans and say bye bye to monthly bill. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com runaway that is mintmobile.com runaway cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mint mobile mobile.com runaway that's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 months. Plan required $15 per month. Equivalent taxes and fees are extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. What a pleasure. What an honor. What a moment it is for me and anyone else that's treated to your presence. Maggie Haberman Smash hit double platinum book selling juggernaut, author, a reporter, keeper of the archives, if you will. It's great to have you on Runaway Country.
- [40:29]
Maggie Haberman
Maggie Haberman Alex Wagner thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Sorry that, I'm sorry there my co author is not here but we'll make.
- [40:36]
Alex Wagner
Yeah but I just get you uncut and that's what I love. Jonathan Swan no, no offense Jonathan, but uncut. Haberman well, you and I seen that
- [40:45]
Maggie Haberman
we have a long, you and I have a long history of segments going back a long time.
- [40:49]
Alex Wagner
So I'm very happy sorted history.
- [40:51]
Maggie Haberman
Oh wow. Okay. That's gonna make, that's wrong often
- [40:57]
Senator Gary Peters
but
- [40:57]
Alex Wagner
truly, I mean it's like you have the essential reporting of this decade, I would say. And I'm so eager to get your perspective on what's happening both to our country, but specifically what's happening inside this administration. We spent the first part of this podcast talking about the Iran war and the ways in which the information we're getting is either not fulsome or complete. The picture is very hazy as far as everything from the cost of the war to the war strategy to the collateral damage to the human cost. And I gotta start with following on the reporting you did about the stunning disregard for both reality and sound advice that led this president into this war in the first place. Is it your sense that Trump is actually even getting the information as it, you know, that he's even getting an accurate picture of what's happening in Iran and in and around the global oil supply. Does he get get the right stats at this point?
- [42:02]
Maggie Haberman
It's a great question and I just want to start out by saying that part of why not part of why the reason that Jonathan and I narrow tailored the book to the first 14 months of the presidency was because which meant Jed is sending thousands and thousands of pages of reporting in the lead up to it, literally thousands and some from last year was because we wanted people to understand how decisions are made in their government and how this government is running and this government is, is so this Trump Term is so radically different than term one across the board on so many different fronts doesn't mean Donald Trump is a new human being. Obviously his character is the same, but the circumstances around him and the AIDS around him and the circumstances outside of the White House in terms of a compliant Congress and a really, really deteriorating media environment that he has been bullying in addition to its own problems, have all held helped him in a specific way. One of those ways, Alex, is that I think that a lot of people, because it is such a choose your own information media environment, people voters don't fully other than that, you know, this is a very unpopular war. Every poll has shown that their own polling shows that inside the Trump White House. But if you are a news consumer, if you are a medium level news consumer who feels sort of battered by the news, which we hear from a lot of people, all of us, you can tune it out in a way that you really couldn't during the Iraq War, for instance. Now granted that was post 911 that, you know, it was an event that happened in the US first that it was in response to. But he is benefiting from the fact that there is less of a, of a uniform fact set and uniform media ecosystem, number one. Number two, I believe that he is based on our reporting and again, I don't want to speculate on what we don't know because there is still a lot of limitations on what we can see with him. And we are limited in our own ways too at the moment just because it is such a black box. But I believe that he is very aware of what is happening with global supply chains, with the oil supply chains. I think that the energy crisis is the thing that he understands better than anything here in terms of what the actual facts are. Not sure exactly what he is being told in terms of the munitions. And the US is really at a crisis point on the munitions front to a degree that people I think don't fully understand. And certainly administration has not been upfront about the degree to which he is aware of the loss of life. He clearly knows before we do. But I don't know what else happens. We had a story about the numbers of wounded being greater than the government has said. I don't know what he knows about that because again, he is not somebody who likes hearing bad news and that would qualify as bad news in his mind. But in terms of the impact on the global energy supply chain, on global energy supply, that he does know and that is part of why he is so eager to be done with the War. Now he is also tired of this. There was no quick fix. He is really boxed in with no good solutions here for getting out of a war that he never really made the case for with the American public that he never talked to Congress about ahead of time. They have now notified Congress that fighting is still ongoing, which is quite apparent to everyone. So it's a mixed bag and he is inside. I really can't stress this enough. An information bubble where these decisions about what happens with this government are made by a tiny group of about a half dozen people who are in the Oval Office with him or in the situation room with him, or in the dining room off the Oval Office. And if people are not in the room with him, major, major senior levels of the government, they don't know what's happened. And so all of that is conspiring to mean that his Twitter, troops, truth, Truth social feed, whatever we call it, is how people get much of their information or these Oval Office gaggles that he does. And he can say the opposite, you know, four hours later.
- [46:16]
Alex Wagner
I want to talk about what you just mentioned in terms of the Times reporting that the Pentagon has been keeping secret the actual number of troops killed. It is unfathomable to me. But are we really working in a reality where the Pentagon maybe, if hesitant, if not refusing to give the President a full accounting of the damage of this war because he doesn't like bad news?
- [46:44]
Maggie Haberman
Our reporting, which I should just note that the Pentagon vehemently has pushed back.
- [46:48]
Alex Wagner
Yes, right. But we read the statement earlier in the episode.
- [46:51]
Maggie Haberman
Right. So the reporting was about the wounded and that they were just more extensive than has been said by the government. That doesn't mean that the President doesn't know. It does mean that they are not saying it publicly. And, and I'm not sure whether he knows or not. I do know that this is, you know, the Pentagon has not done a formal briefing on this conflict since May. And what they, I suspect would say is, well, there was a ceasefire and there was a ceasefire that they were trying to have work and that's fine. But there have been attacks on chips since then. There have been engagements. There's been multiple days where CENTCOM has put out US Central Command has put out a social media post saying we're engaged in the 9th day of strikes or 6th day or whatever. There is just such a minimal information flow coming from this government. But I don't know that that means the President doesn't know. I do know it means the public doesn't know. And that is in itself very alarming.
- [47:50]
Alex Wagner
I wonder how much you extrapolate his desire to not, if not know, not focus on negative things, how much you extrapolate that sort of. Of personality quality to his involvement in dealing with tending to greeting the bodies of the fallen and. Or going to Walter Reed where you never see him meeting with the sick and injured. I mean, we know from reporting that you've done and others have done about Trump's discomfort with people who are hurt or disabled in some way. Some of it may have to do with some particular psychologies, but he doesn't like being around those folks. And yet he is the commander in chief. And traditionally, presidents will go to Walter Reed. They're always there when the bodies come back to Dover. He did go to Dover today, as we're recording, Wednesday, but that is not his usual posture. I mean, I kind of wonder if you have any insight into his relationship with the injury, more broadly speaking, and how that informs his behavior in a moment like this.
- [48:56]
Maggie Haberman
Yeah, so we don't have any reporting, certainly not for the book. And again, we closed the book about three weeks into the war. Five weeks into the war, excuse me. Like really right after we put the Iran reporting on how he took the country to war in the Times, even though it was reporting we did for the book about specifically about the wounded, although obviously the number of wounded have increased substantially since then. What we do know is that it's interesting, certainly in term one, as you said, his discomfort with wounded soldiers was described by any number of people who worked for him, and that was not some single source that was based on a lot of people. He did go to dignified transfers in term one. I know I was on Air Force One for at least one of them. We also, Jonathan and I both had reporting in term one when we weren't colleagues that, you know, he found writing these letters to the parents of people who were killed in military conflicts to be one of the things he hated. Not, you know, I mean, to be fair, not because it was, oh, this is inconvenient to me. It was because it was, you know, you have made a decision that has sent someone else to their death. And that is something that I think, at least then he was quite conscious of. We've not heard him say the same kind of thing this time. He has said that it's very sad. He spent the weekend mostly at Bedminster, his club in New Jersey, and then at the FIFA World cup finals, Rutherford, he told reporters on the way back, it's very sad. But, you know, they died so that Iran couldn't have a nuclear weapon. And I don't. That has not. I don't know that that's been the understanding of why, you know, people believe that they were going on this mission. I also don't know how the families would feel about it. I will say, Alex, and I think about this a lot. It's. I mean, a. It's just, it is fundamentally he made a campaign promise that there would be no wars, no new foreign wars, no new Mideast wars. Obviously, he did not keep that. That's just a fundamental. And he has given reasons why and why it's, you know, he is in a very different mindset this time. It is very much about legacy, things he wants to do. He is operating from gut. But one of the moments that was really crucial for him in the four years out of power was meeting with and speaking with family members of the soldiers who were killed at Abbey Gate in. During the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And those soldiers were. Families were very frustrated with the Biden administration. They felt as if they hadn't gotten a hearing about what had happened. They felt as if they hadn't been given information. And he developed these connections with them that came up repeatedly. One of the first things that he did when he came back into office was he visited Arlington and he went to some of those graves. And, and it is a contrast to what we have seen so far. I don't know what will end up happening, but I do know that the longer the war goes on, the more the focus on the human toll, in addition to everything else we've talked about, is going to be hard to avoid.
- [52:16]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, it's inevitable. And counter to what the president has been saying in the Oval Office, like Iran hasn't been decimated and the war's not won.
- [52:26]
Maggie Haberman
No, that's right.
- [52:27]
Alex Wagner
There were 10 people. Apparently there were multiple people killed in the last 10 days of strike. So that's a deadly period for a war that's apparently over or. I don't even know. We're in some liminal space.
- [52:38]
Maggie Haberman
Right. One of the things that he keeps saying is that, as you said, we've sunk their navy, we've sunk whatever. If you take note of the fact, he often then dismisses that as you're being negative or you're saying Iran is doing so well. It's neither one of these extremes. One of the goals of the. This military engagement was supposed to be. And again, they've offered up multiple reasons. One was regime change, one was short of regime change. There were degradations of the Iranian military capacity that the US Government believed could be done. One was about diminishing their ballistics missile program. That seemed like it was more effective several months ago than what is happening right now. Iran still has ballistic missiles. Whether it is acquiring new ones and building them, whether, I don't know, but regardless, or it's just moved some, but they're still there. And so, you know, he is. He is obviously not being honest with the public about what is happening,
- [53:35]
Paul Rieckhoff
but
- [53:35]
Maggie Haberman
that is where we are.
- [53:37]
Alex Wagner
It seems to me that the administration's tactics to, you know, lock, lock, lock down information that is inconvenient to them have reached new heights, or lows, depending on your position here. Right. There's. There's the kind of obfuscation or delayed reporting on essential information, but then there's also the new prohibitions on gathering the information to begin with. I mean, I am stunned, stunned by the fact that, first of all, six people, including three U.S. citizens, have now been killed by ICE agents. Right. And the FBI is now telling ICE, federal agents are now saying that the FBI is no longer, longer investigating incidents that involve ICE agents and that dhs, which houses ice, is going to be the agency responsible. So ICE is effectively investigating itself. Now, I will say DHS and the DOJ are denying this policy change, but this is the reporting that we have. When you hear about this kind of like basically rolling down the gates on any kind of transparency and really stopping the wheels of accountability from turning to begin with, does that tell you anything about the level of panic inside the White House as it concerns immigration policy or just how on defense you think they are? I mean, how much of a direct line can we draw between the sort of new policy that's not really formally announced and the machinations inside the White House?
- [55:09]
Maggie Haberman
One of the reasons that Jonathan and I wanted to write, write this book was so that people could understand again how their government is functioning and how decisions are made. And one of the things we write about in the book is how Trump is great at creating this spectacle of transparency, this show of transparency. His advisors like saying he's the most transparent president in history. Look at all these questions he takes from reporters. He picks up reporters, phone calls. Everybody in Washington has his cell phone number. I mean, that is true. And he certainly takes more questions than President Biden did. But these phone calls, he generally talks to people for two and a half minutes and he sets the terms of the conversation. There are times where people have gotten news out of them. What Jonathan and I do we do not consider it very productive. And these gaggles that he does or these Oval Office sprays which more often than not are just sort of him talking. The White House has taken control of the White House press pool. They pick the outlets that are in the pool. This is fundamentally different than how it has been for many, many, many years. And so I remember being a White
- [56:21]
Alex Wagner
House beat reporter for a small portion of my semi youth.
- [56:26]
Maggie Haberman
And so what ends up happening is you have Kaitlan Collins or Garrett Hayes or at o' Keeffe trying to ask questions, mainstream media reporters and then, you know, in addition to my colleagues at newspapers and you know, or I think Vaughn Hilliard sometimes is in there. But instead, what ends up happening? They ask a question and instead of getting sort of a follow up or backup from another member of the pool, the next questioner is, you know, an influencer or a reporter from a network that's, or an outlet that's favorable to Trump, whose question is sort of, Mr. Trump, how did you get to be so effective? Why are you so good at this and why are you so good looking? And so it really is a massive control of information. And they are very good at keeping secrets when they want to, this White House. They are very good at it. Look, they obviously are not totally leak proof, but the leaks of term one, that's not what is happening here in this White House. It's part of why this book was so hard for us, frankly, to report. It almost broke both of us because just getting accurate information is so hard. But trying to control the information flow and trying not to contradict what Trump is saying is a premium. And saying that federal agents or employees really don't do anything wrong is also part of that to your question. So think about after Renee Goode and Alex Preddy were killed. Really, it was after Alex Pretty was killed, I think that someone was either put on administrative leave or there was a look at. There was. I forget what the specifics were. So forgive me if I'm, if I'm screwing this up about the, the details. But there was more of a conventional effort to say we are looking.
- [58:14]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, Greg Pavino was taken off of.
- [58:16]
Maggie Haberman
Yeah. Greg Vraverino who Christine Ome eventually came to the Hill.
- [58:20]
Alex Wagner
Yeah.
- [58:21]
Maggie Haberman
Right. And so, you know, all of those things happen, but there isn't actually a change inside the White House is what I'm trying to say. In fact, what changed is these, you know, the spectacle change. Those were not spectacles of transparency. Those were spectacles of force. And Stephen Miller loved using those Stephen Miller loved having, you know, these videos of these swarms. Bavino, you know, who was a commander at large with the Customs and Border Patrol, liked it even more. You know, he would have these videos that were like army videos, military videos. And so that has changed. The big showy ice sweeps have changed. Traffic stops hadn't changed. Stephen Miller's push for hundreds of arrests, arrests a day of immigrants who are said to be thousands in the country. Right. Well, it's 2000 is now the target. 3000 was the target last year. That was almost impossible for them to meet. And if not impossible, I'm not sure how they're doing now. But when you set very high targets, you are going to risk these, especially when you have folks who are not trained the way they used to be trained. Yet this is. This is a potential outcome. And so the through line is, after all of the sort of, we can do what we want and we are going to act with impunity. The policies are still very similar. It's just that the outward behavior is not quite the same. But I will give you another example that relates to war actually, just to conflict. Just one last thing.
- [59:55]
Alex Wagner
Sure.
- [59:56]
Maggie Haberman
Yeah.
- [59:56]
Senator Gary Peters
Yeah.
- [59:57]
Maggie Haberman
So last year, during the 12 Day War, and we write about this in the book, the President had this. Remember, he was very upset with JD Vance for not saying, totally obliterated about the nuclear sites that the US had dropped, dropped the weapons on. Trump put out this truth social post that said, we have. I'm paraphrasing, but it was, we have total control of the skies over Iran. And the reaction was a general, what the fuck? Like this didn't make any sense. Nobody knew what this meant. And so even in his own government. So Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, put out this very sort of technical, nuanced post on X that I think was just trying to say where things were. Trump was furious when he found out about it. And that is really one of the last times that I can remember any government official doing something that was at all at odds with what Trump has said. So you really started to see how tightly controlled information was way back then.
- [60:56]
Alex Wagner
I think you're absolutely right to point out that the spectacle relating to immigration has dimmed. Right. You don't have National Guard troops, you don't have CPB storming blue cities, but you have absolutely mass deportations being conducted, raids at workplaces, raids at immigration court traffic stops. You have the shooting of unarmed migrants. That stuff continues. And what you're suggesting to me is the zeal with which they continue to pursue these folks that are here in the country without papers. And even those who are suggest that though on the outside they may seem, I won't even say cowed, but like they are trying to change tactics, they're not really meaningfully. And that betrays Stephen Miller's continued confidence, I guess, that what they're doing is the right thing. And Donald Trump's, I guess, stance that the way that they're pursuing migrants is the way that they need to be pursued in order to deliver on the campaign promises he has every intention of fulfilling. I just think it's staggering that even in the face of highly controversial public killings, at the end of the day, behind closed doors, Trump is still calling the shots the way that he always has been on immigration or Stephen Miller is.
- [62:13]
Maggie Haberman
Stephen Miller is much more of a hardline absolutist on immigration than Trump is. Which is not to say that Trump is. Trump is soft. But it is an issue where, like many others, Trump can sublimate his impulses if there is some other game. And Trump is a businessman, business owner who is himself been said to have employed undocumented immigrants at various points and also has, has relied on worker visas. So it's just a different, it's a different perspective. However, he has obviously endorsed Stephen Miller's most draconian moves or at least hasn't stopped them. And Stephen Miller, Trump's not a bystander. If he wanted to stop things, he could indeed, he gets involved when the PR gets bad, when the news coverage gets bad, which is what happened after Minnesota. Stephen Miller has been thinking about ways to lower the number of migrants in this country for since he was in high school, Basically, the executive actions taken once Trump came into office, many of which, but not all of which were about immigration. There were a number of other fronts as well, were either, you know, overseen by or directed by Stephen Miller. And for Stephen Miller, this is a long standing project. For Trump, it is a less long standing project. But there is this constant. There were stories at the beginning of this year about how Stephen Miller had lost power. And when those came out, it was sort of comical because Miller has absolutely been in trouble with Trump, Trump before. He has been on island internally before. But Miller has many attributes that Trump loves, one of which is a promise to get Trump what Trump wants fast. And so in this presidency where Trump is operating on a maximalist view of executive power to a degree we just haven't seen with any US president, and that includes George W. Bush after 9 11, there are familiar pieces that we have seen with other presidents, but not all at once, not across industries, not these bullying campaigns of the media, universities, law firms, the total erosion of the line between the DOJ and the White House in the post Watergate area, all of which we get into in depth in the book. Stephen Miller can give Trump, or at least promises to give Trump a lot of what Trump wants.
- [64:53]
Alex Wagner
More of my conversation with Maggie Haberman in just a moment. But first, in case you missed it, Runaway country is now available ad free. If you become a friends of the POD subscriber today, you can get ad free episodes of this very podcast and more of your favorite crooked podcasts, all ad free including Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Love it or Leave it and Offline with Jon Favreau. Subscribers also get tons of bonus content, including one of my favorites, Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, who delivers expert takes on polls and the media. Ad free breaking news episodes that feature real time analysis and today's new episode of Only Friends where there's some awesome new content that I am very eager to listen to. You can also get discounted tickets to All Day Crooked Con and so very much more. Again, your subscription supports independent progressive media, so just head to crooked.com friends to subscribe now Now Runaway country is brought to you by Forkful I think it's really hard to eat well when I'm super busy. That either means I eat a bunch of cookies or nothing. I don't know, maybe sometimes I'll grab a handful of jerky and feel virtuous. But takeout and processed food often sacrifices quality, ingredients and taste and, you know, healthy goals. What I'm looking for is maybe what you're looking for, which is meals that prioritize flavor and health and functionality. Enter Forkful Zero Seed Oil Chef cooked fresh, never frozen ready to eat meals made with high quality premium proteins, grass fed bison, wild caught salmon and fresh vegetables. There are delicious menus that fit your lifestyle and meal preferences including gluten free, dairy free, keto, plant based, GLP1 and low carb meals. Eating well does not need to be complicated. There are fully prepared, deliciously healthy meals with no meal prep, no cooking, no cleanup, just clean flavors and they are Ready in under 3 minutes minutes. They are delivered right to your door within 24 to 48 hours. Explore their plans and their menu of fresh ready to eat meals@forkfulmeals.com and use the code Alex to get 50 off your first order. That is forkfulmeals.com Alex and use promo code Alex for 50 off that. Thank you to Forkful for sponsoring this episode. Again, head to forkfulmeals.com backslash Alex for 50% off your first order today.
- [67:23]
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- [67:50]
Paul Rieckhoff
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- [67:56]
Alex Wagner
You mentioned earlier in the conversation and then just now, the ways in which he is the maximalist position and the pressure campaign on institutions near and far, including the media, is unlike anything we've ever seen. And I have to ask, ask you as a New York Times reporter about the news this week relating to the Times reporters who reported on this very significant security concerns relating to the president's new Air Force One jet, which was gifted by the Qatari government and in response, the Trump administration. This is from playbook of yore, goes after the reporters, but not just rhetorically, is subpoenaing them and now also trying to get phone records from these reporters, relatives. It is a new front in terms of press intimidation, First Amendment concerns, government overreach. What did you make of that? I mean, you're, you're, you wear two hats here. One is a reporter and like, just what did you, what did you make of that as a, as a tactic, as a strong arm tactic of the administration. But two, is your mom worried? Like, does she. It's like how, how concerned are, I mean, as someone who is very much reporting on the facts coming from this administration in a way that nobody else really is, like, how does it all make you feel as you try and do your job?
- [69:15]
Maggie Haberman
Well, it doesn't. Jonathan and I are going to keep doing the work we do regardless. I mean, he's attacked me, he's attacked Jonathan verbally. That's nothing new. And he's done that with us repeatedly. In terms of the subpoenas, that's a different issue. The subpoenas, Obamas are an instrument of government and he's not the first president to issue subpoenas to reporters. But the way in which this was done, I mean, Obama was prolific with subpoenaing reporters, as is pretty well known at this point. What Obama didn't do, to the best of my knowledge, is send subpoenas out as almost a first step. They're traditionally supposed to be, as a practice, the last resort to try to obtain information so that you are acknowledging reporters First Amendment rights and First Amendment role and First Amendment protected work. This was within 24 hours, I think, of the story. It was FBI. These were not subpoenas that were sent to the New York Times lawyer, who is pretty easy to find. It was the FBI being sent to the reporters homes, not the subpoenas being sent to the lawyer. And then it turned out that the subpoenas were actually broader than people have realized. To your point, it was relatives of some of them. And so I don't think that the subpoenas of the relatives are likely to provide any significant information. Well, even if it's not, let's pretend they did stick. I don't know what I mean, it's pretty far flung. But obviously the Times is fighting these subpoenas very vigorously. But it's very clearly an intimidation tactic. It is meant to chill other people who might be pursuing the same lines of reporting. And it is meant to intimidate the paper. And Jonathan and I are very, very lucky and fortunate to work for a paper and an outlet that is owned by the same family for many, many, many decades and over which the federal government does not have levers as they do. You know, news station news, television networks
- [71:30]
Senator Gary Peters
or
- [71:32]
Maggie Haberman
law firms or newspapers that are owned by business people.
- [71:36]
Alex Wagner
I gotta ask you, given how preoccupied he is with seeming like a man of great integrity and power and capabilities, is there a special lacuna, if you will, when it comes to corruption? Like I feel like they cover up or paper over or, you know, deny so much of the negative shit that swirls around this White House, but the, the corruption that's happening in plain sight, they don't even bother trying to paper over? I mean, what's that all about? Is it just that the Trump administration and Trump has made a calculation that Americans don't care about corruption? Do the kids have special dispensation? I sort of wonder if you have any insight into how and why Trump and his family feel like they have carte blanche when it comes to this kind of thing.
- [72:31]
Maggie Haberman
So we have a chapter in the book about the self dealing and just the self enrichment that's happening here. And it is staggering. It is, you know, it is on a. There's, there's absolutely no analog in American history. The President of the United States made 2 million, 2 billion, excuse me, dollars in the last year since he, since he took office. And his sons have.
- [72:55]
Alex Wagner
So crazy.
- [72:55]
Maggie Haberman
His sons have made quite a bit of money. What you just said in our reporting is Is the. Is. Is a key, which is, you know, he told our colleagues, colleagues in a New York Times interview earlier this year when one of them asked about the money that was being made. And I think it was primarily around crypto at that point. And really crypto has been how they have made most of their money. And so we are clearly all only scratching the surface of what's there. In mine and Jonathan's opinion, there's going to be a lot more to be learned. But Trump said he was asked about business dealings and he said that he prohibited his sons from doing business deals in the first term, which not true. It was supposed to be new foreign deals. They could still do local deals, I believe. And he said that he found out that nobody cared and that he was allowed to do it. And there's two clauses of that sentence. Nobody cared, meaning that it didn't create the level of noise, negative noise that it could have. And it's far from true that nobody cared. But I absolutely would say that a lot of his, A, it wasn't anything like this just in terms of the business piece. And B, you know, some Republicans did still care. Democrats certainly cared, but it was not a major accusations of corruption were actually not that central to a, what Democrats did. Presidents are actually generally allowed to do a lot. And Trump came into this presidency with a ruling on presidential immunity, which in our reporting, and we laid this out in the book, has emboldened and informed so much of what he has done this term. Because it's a loosely tested. Actually it's not really attested at all yet Supreme Court decision on what would define what would count as a presidential election.
- [74:48]
Alex Wagner
I got one more big picture question for you. You said, you know, you've talked about how both, I mean, if Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan think we're just scratching the surface of anything, that means the rest of us are still like 10,000ft above.
- [75:03]
Maggie Haberman
So are we, man. I mean, there's a lot more to learn here.
- [75:05]
Alex Wagner
Oh, bullshit.
- [75:06]
Maggie Haberman
And I give you. No, no, I'm serious.
- [75:08]
Alex Wagner
Okay, fine. That's terrifying. Like, that's terrifying if we're talking about corruption or otherwise self dealing. But I mean, you also know throughout the book and in this conversation just how different and tight Trump 2.0 is. How it is. The administration is populated almost exclusively by people who've pledged fealty to Donald Trump in a way that, you know, made it hard to report your book. Right? Like there are no leaks or there
- [75:32]
Maggie Haberman
aren't very far few. There are far fewer.
- [75:34]
Alex Wagner
Far fewer. Right.
- [75:35]
Maggie Haberman
Yeah.
- [75:35]
Alex Wagner
Do you think that reality is gonna make it that much more difficult to really get at the truth of what happened in these four years? I mean, both on the level of corruption, but also institutional perversion and potential criminal activity, or in that space? I mean, how complex is unwinding this spider's web going to be, given the reality of how tightly sealed the windows and doors are, proverbially speaking, inside the Trump White House?
- [76:07]
Maggie Haberman
So I think a couple of things. Number one, we don't pretend to think that we have, have uncovered everything there is to know about anything involving these 14 months. We made the best effort we could at a first draft of the history of the first year back of this enormously consequential presidency. So there's obviously there is much more to learn. Normally, when we get past November of a lame duck presidential term, Alex, I can generally see what's going to happen. You know, the Democrats are still struggling to sort of figure out what their message are, but the president is quite unpopular. This war is very unpopular. We got our hands on internal polling from the Trump team, and it's in the book. But they're very well aware that there's a problem in terms of how voters feel about their own lives. And so. And on where Trump's focus is, including the mind share that goes to these monuments and legacy buildings building. We've had, we've seen before, when administrations don't comply with certain subpoenas. I don't know what it looks like in a world where potentially the administration's complying with, like, almost no subpoenas until, until a judge orders something and the court system has pushed back pretty aggressively on this administration at various points, not every point, so certainly. But the Supreme Court is generally the only authority this administration recognizes. And so by the time things get there, if they get there, the facts on the ground have changed or the administration has moved too fast, or they've waited people out, which was a lot of what happened with the legal cases during the 2024 campaign. So I don't know what that looks like. I tried to look past November, and it's kind of a black hole in terms of what the future looks like. The other piece that I would just point to is he is the most regenerative public figure of our lifetime. There's nothing about him that we know that says he's going to go off and paint or he's just going to be like, you know what, J.D. vance, easily take it away.
- [78:16]
Alex Wagner
So I guess what I'm hearing you say is like, don't think that just because he's no longer in office, the vice grip on power is going to relax to the extent that it's going to be easier to, to report out what's been happening inside the White House
- [78:29]
Maggie Haberman
and that, and that typical accountability mechanisms that are part of our, of our government and our system that have been part of both parties for a long time will look the same. I just don't know.
- [78:40]
Alex Wagner
Okay, well, fuck, how about that? I mean, I'm just. Man, no, and you're totally right. It's very, it's cold water in one's face. It's a, it's a wake up call. Like, remember the past. The past is present. And Maggie, I mean, like I said, like you just put so much detail into what is a pretty skeletal outline we have of what is happening inside that White House. The information we get as the American public and news consumers. And I don't know, you may be like very blase about how difficult it
- [79:14]
Maggie Haberman
is and how not blase.
- [79:16]
Alex Wagner
Well, but you're just like Jonathan and I will continue to report. I'm so impressed with your tenacity and the rigor with which you approach your job. And we owe you a debt of gratitude for all that you've done. So, you know, keep it up, woman.
- [79:28]
Maggie Haberman
Well, I appreciate you greatly, Wags. So thank you. And thanks for having me today.
- [79:31]
Alex Wagner
Seriously, thank you for taking time from Hacks on Tap Records.
- [79:35]
Maggie Haberman
Oh my God.
- [79:36]
Alex Wagner
To do Runaway Country. And from everything else you're doing for our democracy, you are the best, Maggie Humerman. I cherish our time together.
- [79:43]
Maggie Haberman
I thank you. I love being on with you, Alex. So thank you for having me.
- [79:47]
Alex Wagner
That's our show for this week. Please don't forget to check out the show and our wrap review response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway country with Alex Wagner. And if for some reason you're not sick of me yet, take a look at my substack. How the hell with Alex Wagner. Last but not least, if you have been impacted directly by the Trump administration and or its policies, do send us an email or a one minute voice note@runawaycountryrooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. Big ups to everyone who has written in already. You're the best. Runaway country is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Ilona Minkowski, Emma Ilech, Frank Haley Jones and Anisha Banerjee with help from Eric Schutt, Kenny Moffat and Charlotte Landis. Production support from Ben Hethcoat, Katie Long, Adrian Hill, and Matt de Groat. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
- [80:39]
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- [81:06]
Paul Rieckhoff
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