MS NOW Highlights - March 26

[0:02] with the iranian regime watching to judge what and who they are up against in donald trump's war [0:10] donald trump failed another can he stay awake and alert in the cabinet room test today and remember [0:19] this was a meeting about the most important thing the cabinet can ever discuss war the morale of [0:30] their fighters plummeting we see that disconnect daily they're privately admitting as you said [0:36] mr president very heavy losses we know that president trump has given us a clear mission [0:42] our capabilities are only going up and iran's are plummeting we are here to win and we're full speed [0:49] speed ahead and while he was at it donald trump failed another self-administered cognitive test [0:57] by being incoherent and wildly wrong about very very simple things since 2018 donald [1:03] trump has been publicly insisting that he has been taking cognitive tests and that he [1:09] a [1:09] st them that's his word aced in 2020 the new york times described the cognitive test that [1:17] donald trump was boasting about as quote a 10-minute screening exam meant to highlight [1:22] possible problems with thinking and memory and the questions include being able to draw a clock [1:30] and identifying a lion rhino or camel a perfect score is 30 a score from 26 to 30 is considered [1:40] normal so a [1:41] perfect score on the cognitive test that donald trump claims he aced is normal the only reason [1:51] to repeatedly administer cognitive tests to donald trump would be doctors concern about [1:58] donald trump's cognitive ability now listen to donald trump today in the middle of what [2:05] was supposed to be a wartime cabinet meeting lying once again about his cognitive test i [2:18] don't want a stupid person being president you know i'll say it right now i say it because don't [2:23] press every person i'm the only president that ever took a cognitive test it took it three times [2:30] it's actually a very hard test for a lot of people it wasn't hard for me [2:34] but it's a cognitive test it starts off with an easy question and by the time you get to [2:39] the middle gets tougher by the time you get to the end very few people can answer those [2:43] questions they get very tough mathematical equations and things i took it three times i'm a [2:49] I aced it all three times in front of numerous doctors that I have no idea who they are. [2:55] And I was told when I went in, they said, Dr. Ronnie told me this. [3:00] My current doctors are fantastic doctors. [3:02] They said, well, if you take it, you know, it's Walter Reed. [3:07] It's essentially a public hospital. [3:09] And if you do badly, it's probably going to get out. [3:12] But I aced it. [3:13] I got them all right. [3:14] And one doctor said, I've never seen anybody get them all right. [3:17] I've been doing the test for 20 years. [3:19] Doctors see people get perfect scores all the time on cognitive tests, all the time. [3:29] Perfect scores are normal. [3:33] One question that is not on the cognitive test is, how much does a Sharpie cost? [3:39] That became relevant today as Donald Trump, in a wartime cabinet meeting, [3:44] drifted off into pathological lying about $1,000 pens and Sharpies [3:51] in another proof that Donald Trump [3:53] doesn't have a sharpie. [3:53] He does not have the attention span or the mental capacity to be commander-in-chief. [4:01] See this pen right here? [4:03] This pen is an interesting example. [4:04] It's the same thing. [4:06] So this pen is very inexpensive, but it writes well. [4:10] I like it. [4:11] But I can't have the pen the way it was. [4:13] You know what it is. [4:13] I don't want to give too much publicity, but they do treat me well. [4:16] Sharpie. [4:19] So I came here. [4:21] They have $1,000 pens. [4:23] And you know, you hand pens out. [4:24] You're signing and you hand them out. [4:25] You're handing them to all these people. [4:27] Sometimes you have. [4:27] 30, 40 people. [4:29] And they were $1,000 apiece. [4:31] Beautiful pen. [4:32] Ballpoint. [4:34] 1,000. [4:34] It was gold, silver, gorgeous. [4:36] But I'm handing it out to kids that don't even know what they are. [4:38] What is this, mommy? [4:40] It's kids. [4:41] They're getting a pen for $1,000. [4:42] They have no idea what it is. [4:44] And I feel guilty because I'm like, you know, I'm by nature. [4:47] I don't, you know, it's the government. [4:49] I love the government like I love myself economically. [4:53] I want to save money. [4:55] So I'm saying this is crazy. [4:56] And it had another problem. [4:57] They didn't write well. [4:58] So I take it out and I saw it and there's no ink and I got all you people looking and you say there must be something wrong with Trump. [5:08] And there's no ink in the pen and it costs $1,000. [5:12] This one I called the guy. [5:14] I said, I'd like to use your pen, but I can't have a great thing with a big ass on it. [5:19] Same Sharpie as I'm signing a trillion dollar airplane contract to buy brand new fighter jets, brand new B-2 bombers, of which we just ordered plenty. [5:29] I can't. [5:30] I can't do that with the press. [5:32] Use your pen. [5:33] But I like the pen the best, but I'll sign it. [5:35] I could do like Biden did, you know, give it to somebody else to sign or an auto pen or maybe sign it separately in another room. [5:42] But I can't use your pen. [5:43] You said, why can't make it nicer? [5:45] So what can you do? [5:46] He said, I'll paint it black. [5:48] I said, that's nice. [5:49] And I can even paint the White House on it, sir, if you like, in gold, almost real gold. [5:56] Not bad. [5:57] And I can even do your signature, sir. [6:00] And by the way, this was not. [6:01] I just saw the pens in there. [6:03] I thought that this is an example of how twenty five million dollars spent by me at the Federal Reserve would be a better job than four billion dollars that they're spending. [6:16] The Iranian regime was watching. [6:21] And then he floated into a deranged digression about the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Republican Jerome Powell, in which Donald Trump said, among other things, quote, we have a moron at the Fed and quote. [6:37] When Donald Trump finally. [6:40] Found his way back to his beloved Sharpie, he said this just to finish on this one. [6:52] So I told that story to somebody and said, yeah, but I mean, but it's not the same thing. [6:56] I said, you're right. [6:58] This one is better. [7:00] It writes. [7:02] So the guy said to me, you don't have to pay me, sir. [7:06] I'll give him to you for nothing. [7:07] I said, no, I don't want that. [7:09] Let me pay you. [7:10] I want to pay you. [7:11] No, sir, you don't have to. [7:12] You're the president of the United States. [7:13] He was shocked. [7:14] The head of Sharpie gets a call. [7:16] I don't even know who the hell he is. [7:17] He said, is this really the president? [7:21] He said, no, you don't have to pay me, sir. [7:23] This is such an honor. [7:24] I said, no, I want to pay you. [7:26] He said, what would you like to pay? [7:28] I said, how about five bucks a pen? [7:29] He said, that's all right. [7:31] Whatever the hell we agreed to. [7:33] Peanuts as opposed to a thousand. [7:36] And these were thousand dollar pens. [7:38] And we were giving them out. [7:40] Sometimes, you know, you were there for signage that have 30, 40 people standing behind me. [7:43] I'd give out 40 pens to people. [7:45] Then somebody would say, could I have a couple extra? [7:48] That's why I go. [7:49] I'd say, you want five? [7:50] Here, take five. [7:51] But the bottom line is, they're better pens. [7:54] It's a business story. [7:55] So for $5, it could be zero. [7:58] But for $5, I get a much better pen than for $1,000. [8:02] And I can hand them out. [8:04] And actually, they become hot as a pistol. [8:06] So what can I tell you? [8:08] With that, could I give it to, please, a man who's done a great job at treasuring? [8:14] Good luck, Scott. [8:16] Well, sir, as always, you're a tough act to follow. [8:19] But that is great. [8:20] Very illustrative. [8:24] It is indeed very illustrative, as Scott Besson just said. [8:29] Donald Trump, the master negotiator, negotiating the price of a Sharpie, one Sharpie at $5. [8:38] At Staples, right now, you can get a dozen for $8.99. [8:43] That's $0.75 a Sharpie right now at Staples. [8:49] Donald Trump was trying to show the room what a brilliant negotiator he is on behalf of the United States government. [8:55] Always getting the lowest price, even on Sharpies. [8:57] And Donald Trump was in a room where he and none of the other billionaires in the room had the vaguest idea what the price of a Sharpie is. [9:03] None of them had any idea. [9:05] And so the $5 a Sharpie sounded great to those oblivious Trump buffoons. [9:12] In any presidential campaign, it is always hard to pick the moment that decided the campaign. [9:17] But in 1992, when the economy was the issue and President George H.W. Bush appeared to be oblivious to price, [9:25] at a grocery store checkout counter, that may have been the moment when all was lost for the Bush campaign, [9:31] as Bill Clinton continued to campaign on what would now be called affordability. [9:38] And in this moment in the American economy, with gas prices skyrocketing in the second year of a presidency [9:44] in which the central campaign promise was to lower prices, [9:47] Donald Trump demonstrated his obliviousness about a price that every mother or father with kids in school knows. [9:55] The price of a Sharpie. [9:55] Seventy-five cents. [9:57] Oh, and those $1,000 pens Donald Trump was talking about at the White House for bill signings? [10:04] They never existed. [10:06] That's a lie. [10:08] The pens used for bill signings before the Trump presidency were very nice, high-end, ballpoint pens with a retail price of about $200. [10:18] President Bill Clinton gave me one of those pens at the bill signing for that budget bill that we first began discussing in that first cabinet room meeting that I was in. [10:26] Joe Biden used slightly cheaper pens for bill signings during his presidency. [10:31] But they were expensive pens, not $1,000. [10:35] There are much more expensive pens in this world. [10:39] Donald Trump is right. [10:40] The $1,000 pens exist. [10:42] They just never have been used by the President of the United States for bill signings. [10:47] So going from a $200 pen to a 75-cent Sharpie, or even Donald Trump's wildly overpriced $5 Sharpie, [10:55] could be Donald Trump's only success. [10:57] He's done a successful cost-cutting exercise in all of government, but he's not satisfied with it. [11:01] He has to lie about the $1,000 pens that never existed. [11:08] The Iranian regime that Donald Trump is at war with was watching today. [11:12] They watched who they are up against. [11:16] And we can be sure that they found it very illustrative. [11:22] As we mentioned at the top of the hour tonight, President Trump announced that he's going to sign an executive order directing the Secretary of Homeland Security [11:30] to pay TSA agents. [11:32] And end the chaos at our nation's airports. [11:34] Now, very clearly, he's trying to take credit for solving the problem here. [11:38] That's to state the obvious. [11:39] But remember, this is a problem he himself created and has perpetuated now for weeks. [11:45] I mean, Democrats have repeatedly offered to pass a stand-alone bill funding the TSA. [11:49] Even Republicans, like Senators John Kennedy and Ted Cruz, got on board with that plan. [11:53] But Trump refused. [11:55] He could have signed this executive order at any point over the past month. [11:58] Or he could have agreed to the deal Democrats were offering him. [12:01] But he chose not to. [12:04] He created this mess. [12:05] And now he's trying to take all of the credit for fixing it. [12:08] If you don't believe me, here was Republican Senator John Kennedy saying it, as clear as can be, earlier this week. [12:15] We could have had TSA paid by the end of the week. [12:19] But the President said no deals. [12:21] Now, to make matters worse, because Trump waited so long on this, just funding TSA doesn't mean the agency is now suddenly fixed. [12:29] I mean, earlier this week, the head of TSA told Congress [12:32] that nearly 500 TSA agents have quit since the start of the partial shutdown. [12:37] She added that it takes four to six months to train new TSA officers. [12:41] So even though Trump has now all of a sudden decided that he wants to fund the TSA, [12:46] a lot of damage has already been done. [12:48] That will be—it won't be that easy to reverse. [12:51] He's always been a ball of chaos. [12:53] He always makes messes that take a long time to clean up. [12:57] But in just the past few weeks, he has created crises after crises [13:01] that Americans aren't just reading about in the news, but are experiencing firsthand. [13:06] I mean, for example, anywhere in the country, if you turn on any local TV news broadcast tonight, [13:10] I bet you will see stories like this one. [13:13] Gas prices in the state of Texas have gone up by more than $1 in just the last month. [13:19] And with strikes now targeting critical oil infrastructure in the Middle East, [13:24] we may be in for just the beginning. [13:26] Gas prices in Utah are close to $1.20 higher per gallon than a month ago. [13:31] Gas prices here in Maine rose once again this morning. [13:33] Gas prices staying high and getting higher in Las Vegas. [13:36] Washingtonians paying $5.27 per gallon on average. [13:41] The average price for a gallon of regular gas in California is now $5.82. [13:46] Everywhere. [13:49] Today, oil prices rose yet again after Donald Trump removed his deadline for Iran [13:54] to reopen the Strait of Hormuz from this Friday to April 6th. [13:58] And of course, that timeline really means nothing, as we've just been talking about. [14:01] But even if Trump does end up negotiating, [14:03] an end to the war and reopening somehow the Strait of Hormuz next month, [14:07] and I don't know how that will happen, [14:09] experts say that gas prices here at home are likely to remain high for a very long time. [14:14] One economist telling The New York Times that even if the war were to end soon, [14:17] he thinks it would still take another six to eight weeks for oil production and shipments to normalize. [14:22] That's going to have a real impact on Americans' pocketbooks. [14:25] And because Trump owns this crisis so completely, [14:28] it could also have a real impact on American politics. [14:31] Take a listen to this young voter that MSNBC's [14:33] now interviewed at a gas station in New Jersey last weekend. [14:36] My car here typically is only $35 a fill, [14:40] but now it's in the $45, $50 range, and it's a little ridiculous. [14:43] Have you ever voted for a Democrat? [14:45] I have not yet, no. [14:46] Do you think you will now? [14:48] I'd say I'd be more open to it. [14:50] He'd be more open to it. There's something there. [14:54] Joining me now is New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill. [14:56] Governor Sherrill, thank you so much for being with us tonight. [14:59] I really appreciate it. [15:00] I just want to start, there's just been new reporting this evening [15:03] about Donald Trump saying he intends to sign an executive order to pay the TSA. [15:10] I wanted to ask you about it because I think a lot of people who see that headline may think, [15:14] this is solved, I'm going to go to the airport tomorrow and the lines will be short. [15:18] Do you know anything more about it or how it would work in terms of paying TSA agents [15:23] and how people should anticipate if he does sign it soon, [15:27] how long it will take to get things back to normal? [15:31] As usual, this is completely ridiculous. [15:33] There's no plan. [15:35] He makes some tweet. [15:37] God only knows how the Republicans are going to respond to this. [15:40] But certainly if he could have done this, he should have done it already. [15:43] The idea that he's putting these ICE agents in the airports, [15:46] from what we've heard, they're just milling around. [15:48] They don't know what to do. [15:49] You just put out the information that it takes months to train TSA agents. [15:55] So just putting this sort of untrained militia in the middle of an airport just gets in the way of everyone. [16:00] We're still hearing, despite all these ICE agents, [16:02] Houston still was taking about three hours to get through the security line. [16:06] It's really striking to me, everywhere I turn, things that were, you know, not the concern. [16:12] We have a lot of concerns in New Jersey. [16:14] But things that you just took for granted, taking a flight somewhere, [16:17] being able to get through an airport line and security without too much drama [16:22] and then get on your flight and not worry that there might not be air traffic controllers focused on your flight [16:27] or that you might get into a crash on the tarmac or, God forbid, in the air. [16:30] Again and again, we're just seeing rumors. [16:32] We're seeing routine, basic things that Americans should expect to function [16:35] not functioning under the Trump administration. [16:38] It's why I'm fighting so hard to chart a different path forward here in New Jersey. [16:43] It is. That is such a definition of what happens. [16:47] He creates a problem, I mean, then tries to solve it sometimes, doesn't know how to solve it. [16:53] It's a real pattern, and you're really seeing the impact in your state. [16:56] I wanted to ask you, you mentioned ICE at airports. [16:58] I think it's scaring a lot of people. [17:00] We've showed a lot of footage of ICE agents sort of milling around. [17:03] Looking at people, getting coffee. [17:05] It's hard to understand what's actually happening there. [17:07] It's not reducing the lines. [17:09] But when you ran for governor, you talked a lot about energy prices. [17:12] We'll talk about that. [17:14] You didn't focus a ton on ICE, but your tenure as governor has. [17:17] I mean, you took a number of actions just yesterday. [17:20] Tell us about why, kind of what prompted you to take those actions. [17:25] And I'd also love to hear more about whether you think the politics around the issue have just shifted. [17:29] You know, what I learned over the last year [17:34] is it's important to constantly connect with the people you're serving, [17:38] to hear day in and day out about what's going on in their lives [17:41] and how, as governor, as somebody elected to serve them, [17:44] I can make their opportunity better, make their lives more secure, protect their kids. [17:49] That's what I committed to doing, driving down costs in this affordability crisis, [17:55] giving a better future to our kids, and holding government accountable [17:59] for the ways in which it can do all of these things. [18:02] And so I got to work right away. [18:04] And that's why, as we charted out the state of emergency on utility costs, [18:08] I froze rate hikes in the middle of my inaugural address [18:11] as I was continuing to work to make government more accountable [18:14] and put an online dashboard up so people could see where their money was going in this budget [18:18] and focus the budget on taking care of our kids and their mental health and online safety. [18:23] I was hearing again and again about how concerned people were about their safety, [18:27] the interactions they'd had on the streets here in New Jersey with ICE agents, [18:32] the masked people that were carrying weapons that refused to identify themselves [18:37] or give any update on what they were doing. [18:41] We were reaching out to DHS to say, what is the plan here? [18:44] Why are they in certain spaces? [18:46] We were seeing dangerous interactions where kids dispersed and ran away [18:50] as they were going through pickup on the bus in the mornings [18:54] and principals madly trying to find out where these kids were who were supposed to be in school. [18:59] So, again and again, seeing dangerous situations with no accountability. [19:00] Thank you. [19:02] So I moved. [19:03] I said, look, I have pledged to keep our streets and our kids safe, [19:06] and that's what I'm going to do. [19:08] And I'll tell you, I can't weigh in on nationally or where people should go in any given moment. [19:14] I can tell you in New Jersey, if you are fighting for the people that you serve, [19:19] if you're willing to stand up to anyone, including the president of the United States, as I am, [19:23] then you're going to do quite well. [19:26] Let me ask you about energy prices. [19:30] I mean, because you ran on this issue. [19:32] You just mentioned it. [19:33] It's something you talked about relentlessly even before Trump started a war in Iran four weeks ago. [19:39] And I was wondering, given that you ran on the issue but also your background in national security, [19:45] when your constituents ask you when are our gas prices going to come down, [19:49] what do you tell them in this moment? [19:52] You know, I have constituents who ask me about gas prices and affordability. [19:58] I have a lot of constituents, and we have National Guard deployed right now in the Middle East [20:02] who want to know what the plan is. [20:04] And then, you know, we just have people who we're committed to. [20:09] They said, I thought this president was going to end the forever wars. [20:12] That's what he said. [20:13] Mikey, how do you think this is going to be different? [20:15] And I have to tell them this war makes no sense. [20:18] I served on the House Armed Services Committee. [20:21] I was in the United States Navy for almost ten years as a helicopter pilot. [20:26] I was there as we were fighting the global war on terror. [20:29] And I can tell you, you can't simply remove a regime with no plan, [20:33] as we did, and that's how we got into the last 20-year war. [20:37] We saw what happened in Vietnam as we had no good ground strategy. [20:41] And now again, what we've basically come to, what Trump has accomplished here, [20:45] is he has taken out the Ayatollah, replaced him with his more hardline, more anti-American son. [20:52] He's actually lifted sanctions so that Iranians can sell their oil. [20:57] You can see a world where they make money off that just to buy weapons to fire against Americans. [21:04] And he has no strategy in sight for lowering gas prices across the country during an affordability crisis. [21:11] It's striking how every time he gets engaged and involved, working people's lives get worse. [21:17] No question about it. [21:20] I think people are living and experiencing you just summarized so well. [21:23] It's troops. It's people who have children who might serve. [21:27] It's people paying more at the gas tank. [21:29] It's all of the things you mentioned, Governor. [21:31] Mikey Sherrill, thank you so much for joining us tonight. [21:33] Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. [21:36] Donald Trump is losing a lot in court, even though he's made the DOJ more partisan this term than during his first term, [21:43] when he had an attorney general who actually followed the binding DOJ rules. [21:47] That led to the appointment of special counsel Mueller, for example, who just passed away last weekend, the end of a legal era. [21:54] That's relevant because the current DOJ and FBI leaders blatantly break rules. [21:58] A.G. Bondi, accused of breaking the Epstein law, of lying to the public, of misleading Congress. [22:04] The FBI director you see there. [22:05] His behavior kind of speaks for itself. [22:08] So she and the FBI are going after Trump's enemies list, probing and indicting the people that Trump publicly demands. [22:15] You can see the results here. [22:17] Now, that can be illegal itself. [22:19] But they've done it so incompetently that they keep losing. [22:22] The green stamps show cases that have already fallen apart and been tossed. [22:28] Trump's DOJ has had these cases stumble at early stages, lose. [22:32] Sometimes Bondi's chosen prosecutors actually fail so badly they've lost their own entire DOJ jobs. [22:38] In the process. [22:40] Courts disqualifying them because they didn't get the required Senate approval to hold the job permanently. [22:45] That's bad. [22:46] DOJ keeps losing. [22:49] They should be chastened. [22:50] They should follow the rulings and the law. [22:53] But instead, A.G. Bondi has been going full Aaliyah. [23:00] If at first DOJ don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again. [23:05] Try again. [23:06] Bondi is trying again on the losing quest to convict former FBI director Comey. [23:12] The news tonight is they've ginned up a new subpoena. [23:16] That's after Trump's current A.G. and FBI director failed to bill a valid case against him before, let alone win it. [23:23] Keep in mind, the current FBI director under Trump is literally trying to jail the former FBI director on thin, sometimes meaningless, baseless charges. [23:33] Ditto for New York Attorney General James. [23:35] The Fed's trying again, Aaliyah style, after their last case was dismissed at the start. [23:40] Evidence suggests these cases are illegal selections. [23:43] They are illegal selective prosecution. [23:45] And it's not just this lane. [23:47] Trump is also losing cases on policy. [23:49] His signature tariffs, of course, smacked down by the Supreme Court. [23:53] That included his own appointees ruling that he was powerless under law to do that kind of trade war without Congress. [23:59] That's just the law. [24:00] Trump responding by saying he's, quote, sickened by those judges' independence. [24:06] Basically, that because they're doing a judicial job, what they're supposed to do, rather than being his blind partisans, that's a problem. [24:15] And he falsely claims that. [24:16] He claims the judges have become some kind of criminal if they rule against him. [24:22] We got rogue judges that are criminals. [24:26] They're criminals. [24:27] What they do to our country. [24:29] The decisions that they hand down and hurt our country. [24:33] And not that it matters, doesn't matter at all. [24:37] But two of the people that voted for that, I appointed. [24:40] And they sickened me. [24:44] Doesn't matter at all, but he's giving a speech about it. [24:47] It doesn't matter, but he's sickened. [24:49] We're seeing failure and loss in public from someone who's, for all of his vaunted PR tactics and ploys, [24:56] he's currently maybe not very disciplined or effective at holding back the conflicting message, the anger, the loss. [25:05] Now, he's gone beyond just that complaint. [25:07] He's pitching an actual bill that would try to target what he calls rogue judges, [25:12] while Bondi's deputy blames judges for their losses and admits plans to try to move cases to more friendly MAGA areas. [25:19] We see our most active voters. [25:22] Our most activist judges that we lose to every single day are, without a doubt, [25:31] nothing more than an extension of the partisan arm of which they came from. [25:37] There's a lot of ways that we can work within that to get some of our cases where we want them to be, [25:42] where we're going to have a judge that we know is going to be fair. [25:44] So he admits they're losing and they want a judge shot. [25:48] The DOJ is also now paying former defendants from the Mueller probe. [25:52] Mueller, of course, back in the news this past week with his passing. [25:55] They are handing over a million dollars to a Trump vet, you might recall, Michael Flynn, [26:01] claiming that Mueller wrongly prosecuted him over false statements. [26:04] Of course, Flynn was a grown-up and he pled guilty in that very case. [26:08] The payment, an extraordinary effort of relief for Trump allies, the New York Times notes. [26:14] Now, does Trump really suddenly care about getting some money to a former aide? [26:19] It's your taxpayer money, by the way. [26:21] But we're talking about someone, Donald Trump, who's long stiffed his own employees and aides when it comes to money. [26:27] Or is this more about setting a precedent to enrich himself, to get that kind of payment to himself? [26:34] We keep track of this, even if sometimes it's all a little bit of a blizzard. [26:37] So let me remind you, to his great shame and loss, [26:42] Donald Trump tried and failed to ram through a plan to pilfer a whopping $230 million of taxpayer money this term, [26:50] using a similar format as this brand-new Flynn payment. [26:55] And the DOJ should reimburse him for his own mistakes that led to those probes. [27:00] Trump failed to get that done so far. [27:02] Even his partisan DOJ opposed approving something that was a legal conflict of interest that judges might quickly block. [27:08] Experts, if you're curious, also said that the federal law they were citing actually bans that kind of large punitive damage payment, [27:15] if you're keeping track. [27:17] And Republicans viewed it as a kind of political suicide to take that much money from the public [27:22] and put it in Trump's pocket while he's the sitting president. [27:24] No president's ever done that. [27:26] And yet now the Trump DOJ seems oddly interested again [27:29] in pushing a similar magnetism. [27:32] A manga-enriching legal theory. [27:34] Dust yourself off and try again, if you will. [27:38] Day 27 of the war with Iran, and here's where things stand. [27:45] Rising fuel prices have forced the U.S. Postal Service to impose an 8% surcharge on all of your packages. [27:51] And inflation is now expected to top 4%. [27:55] That's according to one estimate. [27:57] As for Donald Trump, he faces no good options to end the war he started [28:01] and growing frustration among the American public [28:03] over the economic pain his war has caused. [28:05] Brand new reporting from the Wall Street Journal reveals that, [28:08] quote, [28:09] nearly one month into the war, the president has privately informed advisers [28:13] he thinks the conflict is in its final stages, [28:16] urging them to stick to the four to six week timeline he's outlined publicly. [28:21] At the White House today, Donald Trump denied the reporting [28:24] and said he is, quote, [28:26] the opposite of desperate. [28:28] But it is becoming increasingly clear that he has few good options. [28:31] The Iranian regime has rejected a U.S. peace proposal. [28:34] There are no active negotiations between the United States and Iran at this moment. [28:39] Two U.S. officials and two sources with knowledge tell Axios [28:43] the Pentagon is plotting a, quote, [28:45] final blow that would involve boots on the ground. [28:48] Among the options Trump could choose from, [28:51] seizing Kark Island, where most of Iran's oil is exported from, [28:55] capturing Iranian territory to allow for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, [29:00] or blocking ships that are exporting Iran's oil. [29:03] Many of these possibilities involve boots on the ground. [29:08] And Axios warns that, quote, [29:10] many of the scenarios under discussion would risk prolonging and intensifying the fight [29:15] rather than bringing it to a dramatic conclusion. [29:18] And that is something Trump does not want to do. [29:21] U.S. officials tell the Wall Street Journal that, quote, [29:24] Trump is willing to order U.S. troops on Iranian soil, [29:27] but is reluctant to do so in part because it could upend his goal of a speedier end to the conflict. [29:33] He is concerned that the number of U.S. troops killed or injured in the operation [29:37] could rise if the war continues. [29:40] The president being confronted with his limited options for an off-ramp, [29:43] none leading to his original stated goal of regime change, [29:47] and his war of choice with Iran is where we begin today. [29:51] Washington Post reporter John Hudson is here. [29:53] He covers the State Department and national security. [29:56] Also with us, Lieutenant General Mark Kirtling. [29:58] He served as the commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, [30:01] and former Deputy Secretary of State for the United States. [30:03] Wendy Sherman is here. [30:05] She led the U.S. negotiating team that reached an agreement on the Iran nuclear deal back in 2015. [30:11] General Kirtling, how sobering that reporting from Axios about the options [30:15] that the Pentagon is laying before the president. [30:18] Your take on the options that are being floated. [30:22] Yeah, it's troubling, Alicia. [30:24] We've talked about this before, but we're talking about different courses of actions [30:28] to bring a political solution to this. [30:32] And you're not going to do that with troops. [30:34] You've got troops on the ground, I don't think. [30:36] You've got various courses of actions, and one of the things we've discussed in the past [30:41] is something called the troop-to-task ratio. [30:44] You know, when there's all different kinds of potential tasks for a military organization to accomplish, [30:50] they're spread very thin. [30:52] We currently have two Marine Expeditionary Units and one Airborne Brigade [30:57] with an airborne headquarters going in, flowing into the region. [31:02] That's 10,000 forces. [31:04] That seems like a lot, but when you're talking about the size of the country of Iraq, [31:09] or excuse me, of Iran, and the potential that they have to defend themselves [31:13] with air defense equipment, drone strikes, explosively-formed penetrators [31:18] like they used in such great numbers in Iraq when I was there, [31:24] they are not going to sit still and just wait for the U.S. forces to invade. [31:29] They're going to defend their country because this is an existential threat for Iran. [31:34] They know that there are dangers lurking, and they're defending their sovereign territory. [31:39] It doesn't matter what we think in terms of whether or not they have a bad regime [31:44] or the Ayatollah is a bad human being and they're oppressing their people. [31:49] They still have a desire with the Revolutionary Guard Corps to defend what they see as sovereign territory. [31:56] General Hertling, I'm reminded of what Trump's own former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said just this week [32:02] about the way Trump is handling the war. [32:04] Quote, targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy. [32:08] And when I listen to this reporting, I'm hearing a lot of tactics. [32:11] I am not, at least in my interpretation of what I am reading, seeing a strategy come together. [32:17] So if each of these tactics is specifically aimed at opening the Strait of Hormuz, [32:21] then theoretically that then, assuming it were successful, allows ships carrying oil to get through, [32:28] then what? What happens then? [32:32] That's what we've been talking about, Alicia. [32:34] Since the very start of this war. [32:36] If you don't have an end state, the means that you use the military to conduct, [32:43] along with the ways you're using them to conduct those means, it doesn't fit together. [32:48] We're seeing battles, kinetic strikes, the potential use of military forces, [32:55] whether it be a Marine unit or an Army unit. [32:58] But again, what are you trying to achieve? [33:01] Now it seems it's an economic purpose. [33:03] Open the Straits of Hormuz, try and get the markets back. [33:06] I'm not so sure that's the best way to use military forces. [33:09] Unless you have a political end state, you're going to waste a lot of lives. [33:14] And I think that was apparent in your opening statement. [33:18] And what you're going to see in terms of forces going into combat on the ground [33:23] are going to face much more difficulties than you see when you have airplanes and Tomahawk missiles bombing from 30,000 or 10,000 feet. [33:33] It's just a different ballgame. [33:35] You're seeing the force involve itself in human interactions on the ground, in tough terrain, [33:44] in geography that is very different than anything we faced recently. [33:49] Trying to establish a waterway to get ships out, if that's the purpose, if that is the political end state, [33:56] you're going to need a whole lot more troops to conduct that task. [34:00] So, Wendy, I want you to help me connect the dots. [34:02] Between that military analysis and the diplomatic analysis, you have Axios reporting inside the administration. [34:08] There are folks who think their show of force would increase their leverage against Iran. [34:12] When you are talking about diplomacy, do you buy that? [34:15] Well, look, I think we always need a credible threat of force in any negotiation of this nature. [34:21] However, as General Herling knows, the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war. [34:28] So the closure of the strait is a consequence of the war. [34:32] Not always. [34:33] It's a cause of it. [34:35] And indeed, the president and Steve Witkoff today talked about putting in front of Iran a 15-point plan, [34:43] which Iran says is impossible and in fact the gap is enormous. [34:47] And Pakistan, the country that ostensibly has been trying to mediate sending messages back and forth, [34:55] today it appears that the Pakistani embassy in Tehran and the Pakistani ambassador's residence [35:02] got hit by a missile, whether it was ours or Israel's or something else. [35:08] But nonetheless, there are unintended consequences of this kind of war where, as the general has said, [35:15] the tactics may be good, the battles may go well, our military is excellent, but there is no strategy. [35:22] And indeed, all we have accomplished here, painfully, besides the death of Americans and the death of so many civilians in the region, including in Iran, [35:31] is that we now have a more radical, as I call them, the hard, hardliners, the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is now in charge. [35:41] And because there have been two instances where we have been negotiating with Iran only to attack them, [35:49] the Iranians are not going to be in a rush to believe that they can get a deal that meets their national interest just because we want it. [35:57] Well, Wendy, in light of that analysis, you have the Journal reporting [36:01] that some people close to Trump are urging him to go harder, saying regime change in Iran could be legacy-defining. [36:08] I mean, are they in la-la land? Because I'm not understanding any of this to be bringing us closer to that goal. [36:15] Well, there has been a segment of our population and our political class who have believed for a long time [36:21] that the regime should be ended and we should do it by force. [36:25] But that is going to take a lot of troops. That is going to take boots on the ground. [36:30] I know that some are suggesting that the President say, here's our proposal. [36:35] If the folks who are in charge don't agree, well, let's decapitate them and get to the next level until we find some folks who will agree. [36:43] But all we have done as a result of these tactics is to increase the nationalization of it, the nationalism in Iran. [36:54] This is a country with a great history of pride and resilience and resistance. [37:00] resistance. And all we have done, I believe, is increase their resistance. They have asymmetric [37:07] tactics they can use. As the general has mentioned, they are not going to give up easily. [37:13] They are not going to capitulate just because we want them to. And as the general said, [37:18] none of us likes this regime. All of us want the people of Iran to have freedom. And of course, [37:24] none of us want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That's something we've worked for for a long, [37:29] long time. These tactics aren't getting us there. The president has been up for a while [37:36] on Truth Social, very active this morning. And as the war in Iran rages on, new polling shows [37:43] the conflict could be a growing political liability for the president, as well as his [37:48] fellow Republicans as they head into the midterms. According to the latest APNORC poll, 59 percent [37:54] of Americans say that the U.S. military action in Iran has gone too far. That number is even [38:00] high. [38:01] Among independent voters, the poll shows that 45 percent of Americans are extremely or very [38:07] concerned about being able to afford gas in the coming months. That number was 30 percent back in [38:14] December of 2024, shortly after Trump won reelection. Meanwhile, the president's foreign [38:20] policy approval rating now sits at 34 percent. That's down two points from last month. Meanwhile, [38:27] Trump's disapproval rating has reached an all-time high in the last year. [38:31] The latest Fox News poll, it finds that Trump's approval rating is 41 percent and his disapproval [38:37] rating is 59 percent, the latter marking a new high for either of his terms in office. [38:45] The president also underwater on foreign policy, with 62 percent disapproving, [38:51] while 64 percent disapprove in particular of how he's handling Iran. [38:55] As for voter concerns, it will not surprise you to learn that inflation remains the biggest worry, [39:01] with 86 percent concerned about how the U.S. government will handle Iran. [39:03] Also, health care, gas prices, unemployment, and the ability to pay bills all rank above [39:10] concerns about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. Joining us now, a great group, the president and [39:17] the CEO of the National Urban League, Mark Morial, political strategist Mark McKinnon, and co-founder [39:23] and CEO of All In Together, Lauren Leder. She's a contributor to the Notice Perspectives column. [39:29] Thank you all for being here. Mark McKinnon, I'll start with you. I'm struck that, [39:34] that Fox News poll, this is the lowest, the highest disapproval rating the president has [39:39] ever registered. That includes the height of the COVID pandemic. That includes the aftermath of [39:46] January 6th. Americans simply do not like the direction he's taking this country. [39:52] Well, I know something about presidents in war. I've been through this and, you know, [39:57] I remember, of course, George W. Bush and the Iraq conflict and how popular it was for about a month [40:04] and then. [40:04] Straight downhill to, you know, pretty historic ratings, but we've seen nothing like this. And, [40:10] you know, I mean, it's, it's difficult to talk about the politics of this right now because it's, [40:16] it's, it's, it's such an urgent conflict with, with such disastrous consequences potentially. [40:24] But, but the politics are pretty clear and that is, it's bad now and it's only likely to get worse. [40:29] Even if the conflict were to stop tomorrow, economists say that the downstream effects [40:34] are going to last at least a year. And that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, [40:35] at least 200 days in my calculation. That's about November, right? So it's not going to get much [40:41] better under the best of circumstances for Trump. And Mark Morial, I mean, Mark makes a great point. [40:46] There's, there's some echoes of what happened in the Iraq war, but that was a war, as you say, [40:51] that was popular to start. The president at the time built a coalition, he built public support. [40:56] He made his case for months as to why we should do this. Now, the American people soured on it [41:00] eventually, but it was popular to start this conflict. [41:05] It was never. President Bush followed the constitution and got a war authorization from [41:10] the United States Congress after discussion and a debate amongst the American people. He convinced [41:15] the American people that Iraq was a threat. Now we learned later, the intelligence was faulty in [41:20] this case, the haste and the rush to war from a president who for years promised that he'd not [41:28] get us into a war represents a flip-flop from candidate Trump to president Trump. And I think [41:34] what the voters are saying is we didn't elect you to do this. We elected you to deal with pocketbook [41:40] issues, affordability, those things that really concern us. And you've basically flip-flopped on us [41:46] and you're focusing on war. You're focusing on the attack tax on civil rights. You've taken [41:51] the country in a direction inconsistent with what you said when you were a candidate. [41:55] And let's build on that. It's, it's, he's not focusing on the economy. Prices remain high. [42:01] And we're seeing it again this morning on truth social. [42:04] I'm focused on like, for instance, the situation at the airports, which this week has, has I, in this [42:09] country has been the topic. Number one lines at airports, three, four hours long, Americans unable [42:17] to get home to their families, to get to work, to see their child's ball game, Eastern Passover [42:21] or on the horizon. This is a crisis and he doesn't seem interested in fixing it. [42:25] Apparently America is not first. I mean, that's really what we take away from this, [42:29] right? And the, and the fact is he didn't even try to make a case to the American people about why [42:34] we were going to face increased prices that the gas pump, why there might be longer term challenges [42:39] for the country, why we're sending some of our sons and daughters overseas. And he's just increased [42:44] the number of boots on heading in the, towards the middle East in the last week, he has not even tried [42:50] to explain why the suffering is worth it. And then you have these joint catastrophes, you know, [42:56] the sort of mess of dysfunction at home, which people are really starting to see and feel. And, [43:04] and I think that's just significant because remember when George W. Bush's poll numbers hit that kind of [43:10] level, what did we see? We had eight years of a democratic president. We had four years of a [43:15] democratic trifecta in the next election. This has very serious long-term consequences for Republicans, [43:22] but Trump has made it clear. He doesn't seem to really care. He does not seem to be concerned [43:26] with what happens in the midterms. He's just not interested. He's trying to pull this war back, [43:30] but it's going to be too little too late. [43:32] Well, and most Americans, you know, most Republicans suggest the house probably already gone. [43:34] it may be. And the markets just opened at nine at nine thirty. And, you know, we know that the [43:39] markets are not the entire economy, but they're down again. We can see here the futures right [43:44] here. Look, they're down as we start this morning. We also, Mark McKinnon, we know that the price of [43:49] oil up again. Yeah. Yeah. And and there's no as you look at the conflict, there's no real path [43:57] for de-escalation. In fact, you could argue just the opposite. So, again, politically, there's just [44:03] again, Mark was saying this. This is completely contrary to what Trump ran on. It was he was [44:08] supposed to be the guy to keep us out of conflicts. We're in a conflict that seems to be no way to get [44:12] out of it. And TSA, you know, I went to the airport to get here at two a.m. in Denver and I've got to [44:19] go to LaGuardia tomorrow morning. And you're right. This voters are feeling the pain and they're [44:24] seeing it directly. And by the way, two Republicans, Ted Cruz and John Kennedy from Louisiana, [44:30] went to the president with a very clear solution. [44:33] To this problem, they said, we've got to we've got this figured out. We can pay for TSA. We can [44:38] fix the rest of it through reconciliation. Done. So and Trump said no. Yeah. Trump said no. And [44:43] that's just that he's really owning this crisis in a way. That's a perfect that's a way to put it. [44:48] Not only is he owning the crisis, he's also acting inconsistent with really the value proposition of [44:53] American democracy, which is that the president and the Congress are going to negotiate and try [44:58] to find common ground and not just have lines drawn in the sand all over the place. [45:03] Yeah. And on that note, Mr. Mayor, in honor of America's 250th anniversary and to help citizens learn the tools needed to make informed decisions.