80-Year-Old Man Loses War

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Then Tommy talks to Senator Mark Warner about the Iran situation and what the Senate can do and why he's pushing his colleagues to confirm Trump's new pick for DNI. Before we start, please consider subscribing. If you haven't already, you get ad-free episodes of Pod Save America and all your other favorite Crooked Pods. You also get to know that you're supporting independent pro-democracy media. You get full access to our Substack newsletters, our subscriber-only shows, like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, and all kinds of other goodies. So check it out, crooked.com slash friends. Become a friend of the pod subscriber today. All right, let's get to the news. The Iran war, appears to be over and Donald Trump has lost. U.S. and Iranian officials have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, shorthanded as an MOU, that extends the ceasefire another 60 days, reopens the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for ending the U.S. naval blockade of Iran, and kicks just about every other issue to the next phase of negotiations, including Iran's nuclear program and economic sanctions relief. Iran has certainly suffered significant casualties and damage in this war, but Trump's war didn't topple the Iranian regime, destroy its military or ballistic missile capabilities, end Iran's support for proxies like Hezbollah, or eliminate its nuclear program. By the way, those were all of the objectives that Trump and Marco Rubio laid out way back in February and March when this whole thing started. Other than that, mission accomplished, which seems to be a face-saving agreement that lets Trump pretend he won, which he did shortly after arriving in Europe for the G7. On Monday. The deal's all signed, and the strain is already partially opened. As you know, they're doing a little hunting for a couple of mines. These ships are starting to go out. Now, on Friday, it'll be completely opened. It's not like the Obama document, which was just a terrible document. I think it's going to be freesailing. We do want to see if we can straighten out the Lebanon thing. Where were they? Are they, by the way? That's the least presidential backdrop I've ever seen. I don't know. I assume they're somewhere in France if he's with Macron. It's like they're on a porch or something. Yeah, I don't know where they were. Anyway, the Obama document was terrible, and we do want to straighten out Lebanon, maybe. Lebanon. So the administration says the full text of the MOU won't be released for another day or two. But based on the details that have been reported, how does the deal look beyond the headline summary that I gave? You know the old Mike Myers thing? Like, you know, the soup nuts are neither soup nor nuts. Like, it's like, this is the replacement nuclear deal. It's not nuclear. We know that. But it's not really even a deal because presumably in a deal, both sides would have to concede something. And I can't figure out what Iran has conceded. I know what the U.S. gave up, right? I know what we're, you know, there's a massive fund that they could get access to, sanctions relief. They may get a bunch of cash. They get a ceasefire in Lebanon, which they want to try to constrain. Iran seems to have agreed to the nonproliferation, treaty it already agreed to and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which was open 109 days ago. So this is not a deal. This is the U.S. surrendering in order to reopen the negotiations. It stopped when it bombed Iran. It was a deal to temporarily deal with the fallout from the stupid war we started in hopes of maybe getting a full nuclear deal to accomplish our goals. I mean, you laid it out. I mean, Trump described his goal as he did a video statement right after they started the war. He said, we're going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. We're going to annihilate their Navy. We're going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world than attack our forces. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. I guess we like. It's the Navy. The Navy thing. Maybe you get one for four there. Yeah, we took out your Navy, but they still have the Strait of Hormuz closed. So that doesn't seem good. So look, this is hard to message because this was the best deal available to Trump and for the world because it ended the war. And we were seeing economies in Asia collapsing. We could still see a global famine because of what was happening. But Trump accomplished none of his goals. And I think we should. We have to message that. And Iran now knows it can shut down the global economy at any time by closing the Strait of Hormuz. And they could get hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Like, this is a disaster. And Trump and Netanyahu. Like, Netanyahu actively tried regime change by killing the Supreme Leader. Trump was for it when it seemed like it might happen. But the net effect is there's now a younger, more hardline Supreme Leader and a more entrenched IRGC running the show. And the United States looks like we're unreliable and weak. I thought it was very funny that in one of his truths about this, Trump was like, I hereby declare the Strait open. And then you look at some of the fine print or at least some of the reported details. And before the war, the Strait was controlled by no one. It was an international body of water. And now it will be controlled by Iran and Oman together, apparently. And so you don't really hear Trump talking about that, although he is saying it's toll free. It's toll free. Like the calls that we used to make back in the 80s and 90s. Sounds like it might be toll free for 60 days. And then Iran has plans to slap a toll on that shipping. Yeah, they've said that they can charge fees. So that seems to be, even that seems to be in dispute right now. Yeah, also, you know, Trump is saying that it'll be fully open by Friday when they sign the agreement. But when they were last talking about what the deal would look like, it was going to take 30 days to potentially remove the mines that are in place. And I don't know if I were if I were an oil tanker, I would definitely want to go after several. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be first. A lot of like, no, no, after you, after you, Exxon. No, no, no, after you. Every restaurant opening gets delayed. You know, like when you do a remodeling, it takes a while to get the kinks out. You want to be the third or fourth oil tanker. For sure. Maybe fifth or sixth. Can I read you guys one quote from a senior administration official? I'm pretty sure his name rhymes with Heidi Prantz. One of the really cool things and interesting things about this entire process that we actually have a direct relationship with a number of people at the highest levels of the Iranian government. You know, you could have just called them and not killed like their whole family. So the war was literally the friends we made along the way. That's what we learned. It's like, hey, man, I know it's hard to make adult friends. J.D. Vance. The male loneliness crisis. He's unbelievable with the Iran war. Where's the there's some back and forth Some back and forth on the sanctions relief too. So it's like first it was we heard some reports that there'd be 12 billion in sanctions relief right away with another 24 billion coming later, depending on what Iran does. And then Iran's asking for like a pot of 300 billion dollars that they might be able to access down the road. Now, it seems like there's no sanctions relief right away, but it's also like where was the money coming? This is like it would be unfrozen assets, right? Yeah, there's a bunch of unfrozen, like there's a bunch of frozen money that is the Iranians money sitting in banks in Qatar, for example. And there's all this talk of like up to a 300 billion dollar investment fund that will come from Gulf countries. I think the truth is no one knows. Iran's real money is going to come from slapping fees on ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz going forward and sanctions relief is my guess. Selling all its oil again. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they've already claimed that the docusign is done or however they did it over email. What is release the text? If the Iranians have seen. Seen it and signed it and we've seen it and signed it. There's no secrets between us. So to me, like I don't I can't think of a reason why Iran wouldn't want the text out there. It seems to me that Vance and Trump are trying to spin this thing until we see the text and everybody loses their fucking minds. Maybe there's something about Jeffrey Epstein in the text. Oh, yeah. That could be. Does he negotiate this thing? There we go. Boy, that would be what a surprise. That would be trying to connect the conspiracy. But Trump was always going to say whatever deal signed was better than Obama's Iran deal. You were saying, Tommy, this morning that the comparison is apples and oranges. Yeah. In the case in the case of the apples, there was a deal that went into force and that worked for a couple of years, according to Trump's own top national security aides. In Trump's case, there is no deal. There exists a framework to talk about possibly getting to a deal. And just to remind everybody what the JCPOA said, the preamble of the JCPOA said, quote, Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Right. So whenever Trump says, look, they said they're not going to get. Nuclear weapon that was already enshrined in the JCPOA and also enshrined in another treaty called the NPT. We don't belabor that. But to make sure that Iran could not get a nuclear weapon, the JCPOA said Iran had to reduce its enrichment capacity by two thirds. I meant like taking down or shipping out or shuttering out all their centrifuges. They had to cap enrichment at three point six percent purity, three point six, seven percent purity. They had to ship out ninety seven percent of their stockpile and allow the IAEA to inspect all of their nuclear sites and then agree to. Not build a new enrichment facility for up to 15 years. Republicans were always mad about the sunset provisions in that agreement, but it was working and it worked. And it sounds like Trump is maybe at best going to get a similar deal after launching this disastrous war that he could have gotten if he just tried to renegotiate. Yeah, we need a president without sunset provisions. That's the problem. Yeah, it does seem like now that the blockade will be over and the Strait is open, like it's not like there's a lot of pressure. On Iran to, you know, get something out of these negotiations. It's just if they want sanctions relief, which I'm sure they do, then maybe they make a deal. But they've also been going on quite a long time without sanctions relief. So it doesn't seem like there's a forcing mechanism here. Right. So Israeli and U.S. officials are both saying that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon is not part of the agreement. Iran and Pakistan are saying an end to all military operations in Lebanon is part of the agreement. Trump has also been publicly attacking Netanyahu over the last few days. For launching strikes in Lebanon that nearly tanked the deal. He told Axios that Bibi has, quote, no fucking judgment. So this chapter of the conflict seems unresolved. What do you guys make of the Trump-Bibi dustup and where this goes from here? That was in an interview in which Trump said that Israel launching those strikes delayed the deal from going through. And then after the deal goes through, in which Iran and Trump are claiming Israel is bound. Netanyahu says he doesn't see eye to eye to Trump and they retain all their prerogatives to defend Israel from attack. And so I don't understand what is supposed to happen over the next 60 days and how you get to the end of 60 days without Trump threatening further military escalation to get to a deal or Israel threatening military escalation or there being some kind of a fight in Lebanon. Because in his first comments about this, Netanyahu. Who said plainly, we reserve the right to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon that will continue to be our position regardless of an agreement. Yeah, every time Netanyahu wants to try to blow up talks or prevent a deal, he just bombs somewhere in Beirut and he tried that move again here and it seems to have pissed Trump off and actually I think probably sped up the deal. I do think it's hard to overstate how negative the reaction to this deal is in Israel right now. I follow this one Israeli political security analyst who was in the IDF for 25 years and he ran the head of the Iran branch for Israeli military. He described the deal as a political insecurity catastrophe for Israel because the nuclear issue is unresolved and the fact that Trump lost the war will likely defer future presidents from taking military action against Iran. What you're just saying there about the lack of stick now for the Iranians. And it also – it seems like Iran will end up stronger because they will have all these financial incentives and there will never – there won't really be a credible deterrent anymore because no president is going to want to touch this stove. And so this is a huge hit for Netanyahu himself. He was Mr. Iran. He was Mr. Security. He was the guy who could manipulate Washington. Now, he's none of those things. He's got an election coming up. And here's what some of his opponents are saying. Avigdor Lieberman said, a catastrophe from Israel's perspective. That was one quote. This is one of the most shocking failures of Israel's foreign and security policy period. So I think I'm also watching whether Netanyahu tries to blow this up. I mean, they're currently occupying the forward operating line for the IDF right now is six miles into Lebanon. They say they're not going to retreat from that, but they're also going to get shot at by Hezbollah. So I just I'm not sure how this is going to go, but he needs to be careful because he needs Trump's help both politically and in terms of security support going forward. But also you can imagine from Trump's perspective. That he's thinking, OK, I got this whole thing done. If the negotiations over the nuclear program don't really go anywhere, no one at home is really going to care or notice and I can just move on. Bibi, though, for everything you just said, Tommy, clearly is not done with Lebanon and Hezbollah and is now feeling all kinds of pressure to continue that. I'm sure Trump thinks, well, Bibi can do whatever he wants now. I'm washing my hands of this like I don't I don't want to deal with it. But. Iran knows that the best way to get the U.S. back into the conflict and to draw them to draw us back in is to close the strait again. So, like, you can imagine that, like, Bibi goes into Lebanon and then there's another and then Iran, you know, fires to help Hezbollah and they go back and forth. And Trump wants to stay out of the whole thing. But Iran, of course, knows that it can get us back into the whole thing just by closing the strait again. And so, like, Trump's Trump's dream, I'm sure, is like, let these people fight it out. I don't care anymore. I want to wash my hands of this. Like, I just don't. I don't think it's gonna be that easy. Hezbollah can launch missiles at any time to draw Israel back into the conflict and draw criticism from the world because Israel is escalating the conflict in response to Hezbollah. Part of what Iran has been doing is using Hezbollah to make this conflict also about Lebanon, which it successfully did. Right. Because now Israel because now, you know, Iran can call off Hezbollah for a short period of time while demanding Israel adhere to a ceasefire in which it's perpetually under threat from Hezbollah in the north. So it's just the stupidity of this war. We will just be living with it for just a very, very long time. Yeah. I mean, the Iranians have said they've made clear that if the Israelis hit targets in parts of Beirut, they will fire back directly at Tel Aviv. And that's the linkage they created in the two conflicts. And I think it's a very dangerous place for Netanyahu to be because people, especially in northern Israel, feel like they're living under constant threat from Hezbollah bombardment. They are. Yeah. It's totally fair to feel that way. But in terms of as a security measure, this is just backfire. I was fired spectacularly. Let's talk about how the memo is playing in Maga World, which has been divided over Iran. Bloodthirsty warmonger Lindsey Graham raised some eyebrows when he tweeted that while he was pleased to hear the strait will be reopened, he's, quote, somewhat concerned with what the Iranians are saying about the MOU, believes that Congress must have the final say on any nuclear agreement and, quote, it is imperative that the architect of the deal, Vice President Vance and his negotiating partners, end quote, be part of presenting any final deal to Congress. So what's that all about, you think? And have you guys seen any other noteworthy reactions from either the anti-war MAGA faction or the Iran hawks? I saw John Bolton criticizing it. Lindsey Graham being unable to criticize Trump because Donald Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed. It's so pathetic. You want to hang this around J.D. Vance's neck because he's easier to criticize. You feel like you have a little bit more. You're just not scared of the guy. It's all. All sort of the usual pathetic Lindsey Graham. The anti-Iran hawks are losing their minds. I interpreted Graham's comments both as wrapping this thing around J.D. Vance's neck, but also maybe suggesting that this would be subject to a 67 vote threshold in the Senate, which means it would be dead. Or, yeah, treaties require two thirds vote. The JCPOA was not treated as a treaty. Thus, future presidents were not bound by it. So maybe that's the argument here. But like Mark Levin, the Fox News host, is losing his mind on an hourly basis. He's getting in fights with like. Micropenis. The national security team. Yeah. The neocon think tanks are losing their minds. There's one called FDD, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, which is just this garbage human beings, you know, propped up by right wing billionaire money who do nothing but push for wars that they nor their kids will ever fight in. I haven't heard APAC weigh in. They've been sort of suspiciously quiet. So. But the hawkish wing of the Republican Party is furious. They know this is a capitulation. They know Trump lost. They're just trying to figure out how to undo it. I hate to break it to Lindsey Graham and maybe J.D. Vance, but I don't think Congress will be viewing any kind of deal anytime soon because I just can't imagine a deal actually getting done at this point. Yeah, good point. You can see Graham going after Vance is, like you said, because he can't criticize Trump, but also it's kind of like a warning shot to J.D. Vance about 2028. And it did make me think that if this goes as we think it's going to go and the Iran war hawks are all pissed off, someone's going to try to launch some kind of a more pro-war campaign in the Republican primary against J.D. Vance that is destined to fail, by the way. Tom Cotton or somebody. Yeah, exactly. But you can see Lindsey. Ted Cruz. Yeah, Lindsey, they want to kind of hold J.D. Vance up as like, beware, beware, we're going to come after you in a primary with our hawks, which is like, oh, I'd be so scared. Yeah, yeah. I don't really know if that's going to work, but you can see that. You can see that. Maybe like Ted Cruz, who's also, I saw, thinking about a presidential campaign again. Amazing. Amazing stuff. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Not everyone experiences summer as an endless parade of hot dogs, vacations, and pool parties. For some people, life's woes don't abate when the temperature climbs and the days get longer. If you've got summertime blues or are simply feeling overwhelmed, BetterHelp is there when you need it. 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. 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Order now at drinkwillies.com and use code CROOKED for 20% off your first order, plus free shipping on orders over $95. I'm a huge fan of Willie's. It's really great. Enjoy life in the high country. Go to drinkwillies.com and use code CROOKED. I want to touch on all the political implications of all this for the midterms and beyond. There's a question of how long it will take for high gas prices and other straight-related disruptions to end. A question of whether Trump and Republicans will be able to just move on from Iran and pretend like it never happened, even if the next phase of negotiations hasn't led to a deal by November. And then there's the question of what Democrats say about any of this over the next few weeks and months. Tommy, you want to take the—I know you have some thoughts on the last one, especially. Yeah, no, I think that being a Democrat in this situation is very hard because we are trying to be responsible. And, you know, if a Democrat was cutting this deal, if Barack Obama was making this agreement, Republicans would say, you're weak, you're a coward, you lost, you know, rinse, repeat on Fox News ad nauseum. And it's a simple and powerful message, you know, strength versus weakness. Our job is harder because, again, ending the war was the best of a bad set of options. But we need to explain why Trump starting the war has made us worse off as a nation because I think we just need to kill in, finally, this neocon argument that you can bomb your way to peace. We heard this in Iraq. Somehow it wasn't discredited then. Now we're at war with Iran, and it's just a nightmare. And so, again, it's repeating that we failed on the core objectives and just arguing that we could have gotten the deal Trump will potentially get after the 60 days of negotiation without ever going to war. The original sin was not, in 2018, just trying to renegotiate the JCPOA. And I think Democrats need to be more full-throated in support of diplomatic solutions to problems, stop being afraid of their own shadow on this stuff, and more full-throated. More full-throated about why regime-changed wars in the Middle East are a disaster. I thought we'd all gotten there, but apparently not. Yeah. The good news is this war is extremely unpopular, like, shockingly unpopular. 60 days from now is, what, like, mid-August. And so, two possibilities, well, a whole range of possibilities, but two possibilities are there is a deal, in which case Trump will do everything he can to make it seem like he did this amazing move to start the war, to get us to a position to negotiate the deal. And that'll be about selling. That'll be about us telling just the story of how we got here and how stupid and dangerous and bad it was. And then the other is, God only knows the kind of chaos that could happen in the next 60 days. You know, there's algae in the, he drained the fucking reflecting pool to paint it blue, but the algae's back. He's not, you know, he does not have some magical ability to avoid the realities of the world. And, like, the, I think we will, it will be so close to the election by the time we win. We either get to a deal or don't, that we will be able to, I think, make it a big part of people's dissatisfaction with the economy, the high cost of living, and everything that we'll carry on for weeks from now, if not months from now. It's also, like, the Strait of Hormuz is not a valve you turn on and off. It's not like gas is not flowing. It's like, oil futures prices can go down quickly, but tankers will now have to come out, and future tankers will have to go back in, load up their gas, and then transit it. Like, I think there are already reports that these oil and gas companies are kind of, moving cautiously, because they don't know, like, this isn't a final deal. There's no agreement. There's no nuclear agreement. Trump is threatening to go back to war. And so, I just don't think this is going to be resolved quickly. It'll take months, probably. I think even under the best case scenario, gas prices come down between now and November, but they don't end up where they were before this conflict started at all, because it's just going to take time. Even the most conservative economic estimates are saying that. I also think, for Democrats, you go out there and it's like, Donald Trump just spent the last year, embroiling this country in a war that he lost, that cost us upwards of maybe a hundred billion dollars. And then, however many more billion dollars people paid in higher fuel costs. And he hasn't seemed to have learned any lessons, nor have the Republicans in Congress. And if you return a Republican Congress to him, they're just going to create more war. They're going to jump into more wars. He's still talking about Cuba. He still has Greenland on his mind. Like, the guy is a bloodthirsty maniac, and so are the Republicans in Congress who approved it. And do you want them—do you want them to spend even more of your money on more war? And making the—like, what did this war get us? It got us nothing. Nothing. Nothing. It just cost—it got us nothing, and it cost us a lot. Fourteen people died, thousands of people dying in the region, and just like— And it made us less safe. It didn't make the country any safer. The—you know, when we talk about, like, you know, like, costs being higher, like, and the— it's always very abstract, like, people's lives were ruined by the fact that suddenly their fuel went up, where they suddenly didn't have access to raw materials. Like, this had a huge— There was no ramifications for the global economy that we felt for a very long time. And by the way, everyone who's just predicting, "Oh, this is when—this is when gas prices will go down. This is when oil prices will go down." The market says what the oil is worth right now. The market says what the gas prices will work. If people thought and knew that the prices would go down, they'd already be down. People have no idea what the future holds, because we're dealing with fucking maniacs and the complexities of reopening the strait and all the rest. Nobody knows what gas prices will be in September or October. If they did, that's what the price would be. Yeah. So, one funny footnote on the timing of when the Iran agreement was announced. The Iranians didn't want to do it on Trump's actual birthday. So, they waited until it was Monday in Tehran just to be as petty as fuck, which—got to hand it to them, I guess. Yeah, I guess. It was—they literally used the time change to keep both Trump and the Iranians happy. So, then Trump could say he announced it on his birthday, but the Iranians can say, "No, we didn't," because it was Monday here. It's not your 80th birthday. It's adults who care about their birthday. Everything being about Trump's fucking birthday, it is all so embarrassing. The Iranians feeling like they can get one over on Trump by kind of holding it to not sign it technically on the birthday is stupid. But it's in response to dealing with a guy that clearly wanted the fun of signing the thing on his fucking birthday. That's what should happen when you have a world run by tyrants. They're all just little petty bitches. It's unbelievable. So dumb. Of course, none of this stopped Trump from celebrating the deal or himself. He threw a low-key party at the White House Sunday night where the South Lawn was transformed into a Vegas-style UFC arena that hosted a cage match attended by 4,000 lucky guests and broadcasted to Paramount+. The $60 million event paid for by the UFC and other sponsors was truly surreal to watch. Here's some of what it looked like. I'll just sort of narrate this for those of you who are just listening. Here's Trump and Dana White walking out of the Oval. There's a flyover. I love a good flyover. And here's an actual eagle. That's cool. Also pretty sick. There's the fight. One of the fights. Yeah, there's a couple. A little Evel Knievel action happening. There ain't no grave to hold my body. of the fighters walking out from the oval Michelle Obama is a man am I right America yeah even the crowd is like and that was Josh Hokut who won the heavyweight fight um he's apparently said that before that was this is like a bit of his he said it before in a fight he put it on his Instagram uh like last year and so you know it's I don't know if that makes it better or worse it's a far right mega thing they've been saying it for a long time but for him especially is what I'm saying uh so what did you guys think of the uh of the fight so I feel like everybody combined a couple a bunch of things like one was the just the brazen corruption of the whole thing and having Bud Light sponsorships on the White House lawn and the crypto stuff and all the rest the fact that Donald Trump made this event about him and not the country I think that's a big part of it if this were a democratic White House that also had poetry slams and readings by Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and other kind of sophisticated events and then uh uh one day Barack Obama was like guess what we're gonna have motorcycles jumping over each other on the South Lawn I'd be like that's great yeah having an eagle fly around and land on somebody's arm during the during uh America celebration that's great all these sort of busybodies on social media being like Thornton Wilder once visited the White House like guys guys can you can you please not be a bunch of prissy uh stuck up people people like motorcycles I have no problem with that that is entertaining and it could be on the White House lawn zero problem with that it is the corruption and then making it about him and it being a right-wing maga thing like that is the problem yeah presidents hold events on the South Lawn sometimes it's a concert sometimes it's the dude in a bunny suit rolling Easter eggs sometimes it's a cage fight it's like it is what it is that didn't bother me either the the corporate sponsorship stuff that we're going to get into in a minute is where it gets really gross but just politically I don't know that it was smart for Trump I think UFC fans will love it Trump super fans will love it uh regular people that are pissed about inflation are just like what are you doing how are you how are you spending your time this way Reuters did a poll just 16 of Americans said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the ultimate fighting Championship event uh for his 80th birthday while 46 said it was inappropriate the rest were like whatever I don't care anymore um so whatever it is what it is but also like there's a lot better sports to watch this weekend the next one uh the NBA Championship there's a million World Cup games the Stanley Cup finals were on like I was doing other things I don't have Paramount Plus so I couldn't even watch uh we have Paramount Plus for some some kids programs and um it was uh so I watched the whole thing and I tried to watch it as someone who's just like okay what if I was not really paying attention to politics what would this look like and like first of all the production value outstanding a plus it looked great like the whole event looked really cool there were like and look there are some UFC fighters who have commented publicly about how this is like a gross thing to do and cynical for the president to make it all about him and and we're going to talk about the production and all that the parts that made it more about Trump were the parts that you're like what is this you know and first of all also the fights weren't that great which like I'm not a UFC person but it was like all of them were kind of quick and a lot of first round knockouts yeah and they were like knockouts but it was I don't know it was just and then you see like it's just like that the number of times it panned to Trump and then it talked about Trump and then like then there's Mark Zuckerberg and then there's the president of crypto.com and all this kind of and so like all of the accoutrements around it were like could get really annoying but the fight itself and the and the what way it looked with the White House lit in the background like looked pretty cool but this is where like you will we should talk we'll talk about their corruption but this is where you can't separate the fact that he is so corrupt from the event itself because Donald Trump is trying to steal the like patriotism and excitement and Prestige of America's birthday and kind of put it on himself but the end result is really just he gets his stink on like the White House and the event itself because if it if you didn't know that this was so partisan and so corrupt and such a boondoggle and such favoritism and just so much corporate interest then like maybe it wouldn't be so terrible to have a flyover or to have Marines standing behind a fighter whatever it may not be the kind of thing I would normally want to watch but it wouldn't be so despicable but to to use the military to use these symbols for such a corrupt practice I think is why the whole thing becomes so sorted and ugly yeah I will say the um walking the fighters out through the oval and the dip room and having all like the Marines there saluting the like it was that that part was like a little a little much because it's a for-profit event and because yeah for-profit event and the whole America 250 thing too because it's like whatever president is is is leading the country when it's America's 250th or 275 or 300 whatever you get to do your own thing right but they sort of went out of their way to make it feel exclusionary to anyone who wasn't maga um and just in in the way that they did the event right like they could and not just by being a UFC fight you could have done a UFC fight that that still seems welcoming and unifying to most of the country this is where we're like it's we're back to where Trump was in the first term where he was always taking pictures in front of the desk they're tourists because they know they don't belong and so they walk through this gold-plated room that looks like it has a gold fungal infection and kind of they show through these fighters walking through all the rooms it like a bit like the kind of um it reminds me of like when like human beings in some apocalyptic future stumble upon a museum and they're walking through looking around being like who built this how is this even here like that's sort of the feeling of it to me pate America is brought to you by Tommy John this summer don't be that guy you know the one the one who has full sweat pools under his arms sticking to his shirt in the heat well eat Tommy John that's me all right I like your underwear but you don't this is what's gonna happen I can't stop it public transport is a sauna your walk to work feels medically unsafe but Tommy John is you covered with breathable underwear and undershirts designed to keep you cool dry and significantly less swamp-like just know that Tommy John base layers are lightweight moisture wicking and built with breathable stretch fabric that actually moves with you so you're not spending your morning presentation wondering if people can see the outline of your entire back in sweat your first purchase is covered by the risk-free guarantee so if you're not happy Tommy John will make it right with over 30 million pairs of underwear sold there are thousands of guys out there more comfortable than you right now so don't suffer this summer I love Tommy John I wore only Tommy John underwear it's the best genuinely so go to tommyjohn.com today and save 25 on your first order with code crooked comfort perfected just use code crooked at checkout and upgrade your essentials today hey everyone my name is Elijah Cohn and I've been a producer here at crooked media for a decade I love making our shows with the smart creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who listen every week but the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we made of Yvette ramaswamy grunting while hitting baseballs no wait sorry the thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through vote save America see we don't want our shows to only leave you feeling anxious about the state of the world we want to give you something you can actually do about it just this year our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of dollars in the 2026 midterms and we have no plans to slow down as we head into 2028. as far as I know there's no other media company that does what crooked does we make entertaining thoughtful content that brings people into politics and then we give them a direct way to get involved and if you believe in that mission one of the best ways to support us is by becoming a paid subscriber your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love and building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics but helps people change them and if the mission sounds great but you feel like you need some sweet 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business done learn more at zero.com it would have been entirely possible for Trump to throw himself a 60 million dollar UFC birthday party without also turning it into an orgy of corruption but um that would take all the fun out of it uh first the broadcast itself uh Dana White originally said that the fight would be free on CBS um now owned by Paramount but it ended up on the uh $9.99 per month Paramount Plus uh instead Paramount is of course owned now by Trump ally Trump ally David Ellison who had a front row seat to the fight two days after Trump's DOJ approved his latest acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery which includes CNN I think there's also like a brunch or a dinner for David Ellison that weekend too big party for that so everyone is celebrating the big merger um as for Trump himself ahead of the fight the president quietly purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in TKO holding group which owns UFC which is nothing for him but like optically so stupid you know what I mean just don't do that just doesn't care anymore uh there were also some tweets that appeared to be between Eric Trump and UFC commentator Daniel Cormier looking for inside information for betting on the fights the Cormier is saying publicly that his account was hacked um not to fear the fight still offered plenty of opportunities to make the trump family richer um take a listen tonight's 250 000 performance bonus and usd1 is presented by world liberty financial closed captioning for tonight's broadcast is brought to you by trump coins.com the official ufc trading 250 special edition medallions this ballot is proudly sponsored by truth social the real voice of president trump download truth social today well i was watching that at home that's what i was like this is just it's too much if you didn't catch all that one of the official sponsors of the event was the trump's family crypto operation world liberty financial we've talked about this a lot here um for this event they created a 250 000 bonus pool for the fighters uh which is to be paid in their stable coin usd1 um and then you heard there was also a sponsorship plug there for trump coins.com which is selling commemorative medallions designed by president trump at prices up to 12 000 a piece uh coin heavy event real coin heavy just an idiot tax whoever's buying these fucking coins reacting to a bunch of these stories the white house said that donald trump only acts in the best interest of the american public and that his assets are in a trust managed by his children so what's the problem guys jesus christ i mean politically speaking trump should be furious that this thing was on paramount plus right that limits the distribution that hurts him right this is his propaganda event why is it not seen by more people so you're like okay i get what paramount plus got they got to add subs to get people to buy this what's the kickback i'd like to i'd like to know um the crypto stuff is disgraceful remember like usd1 is their stable coin remember that trump's got the emiratis to use their stable coin in this transaction when they invested 2 billion into binance that like made it the seventh biggest uh stable coin in the world and then reuters did this big investigation of the trump family crypto assets they found the trump family has made 2.3 billion in profit and then of course on the other side of that you have like a million retail investors who've gotten fleeced and have taken 2.3 billion in losses um so this is just an ongoing you know show of the way they're using crypto just to like wring money out of their followers i find the the eric trump uh what's his name daniel cormier thing makes no sense like eric trump so those stories he dm'd the guy said hey is this fight rigged because i want to bet on it and then cormier is like no i got ai hacked what does that mean you posted the tweet it didn't make sense when eric said he deleted it because it was fake but then why would he have posted it eric trump was the first time i believed it might be true was when eric trump posted about yes me too and then and then daniel cormier he was asked about it at the fight and was just like that's crazy why would anyone believe that and then he like tweeted are you all stupid why would you but like you posted it it's interesting because if you look at the exchanges that they posted or the dms that they posted it's very um it's not like it's not as obvious as like hello is are there any fights rigged i would like to bet on it and then cormier was like why would anyone believe that and then he like tweeted are you on them like it was like hey how's it going and he's like oh i didn't expect to hear from you man how it's good good to see you and your family at the fight can't wait he's like hey he placed any bets and then he just keeps going he's like all right fine i'll get to it any of the fights rigged who knows what's real or what's fake anymore anything could have happened could have been hacked someone could have done it i don't know but yeah well this is the problem with these people being and they don't tell the truth liars they're corrupt liars who it is completely believable to me that it's fake it is completely believable to me that it is true you have no credibility i would not be surprised in either direction you are you are completely morally who are profiting every day off the office we can't take your word for it maybe we'll never know the truth because everyone uh around you is a liar um but that's the price uh of being um so dishonest i guess celebrity attendance at the event was mostly limited to the uh the mega billionaire sector in addition to david ellison and the and the crypto.com ceo uh mma enthusiast and masculinity advocate mark zuckerberg was in attendance um maybe not quite out of dallas baggage claim yet were executives from anthropic who uh apparently flew to the capital last minute to meet with the trump administration on monday on friday the administration slapped export controls on the company's top ai models which forced anthropic to take uh fable five and mythos five offline um anyone want to talk about what this is all about with uh with anthropic uh and and whether it has anything to do with their earlier dispute with the pentagon this to me actually similar to the eric trump thing it's because we know that they picked this fight with anthropic a few months ago it's actually hard to know what's true if you read the details they're it does seem to have been a legitimate concern with access to the models that were raised by uh amazon and others but then it appears the administration which has a vendetta against anthropic maybe went too far in its reaction and now the executives have to fly to dc to make nice because it's not about what's in the interest of the pentagon or the country but it's about personal relationships and ego and so they have to figure out how to smooth things over and you can it is just very hard to tell the difference between uh penalizing anthropic because it's now an enemy of the administration versus actually stepping in because there may have been an issue or if it's somewhere in between yeah i mean so there was a concern about anthropics model and the ability for it to find cyber security vulnerabilities and exploit them so they limited the distribution and then these researchers at amazon got access to fable five which is like like it's like mythos with guardrails that they released to the public uh they were able to trick it essentially into giving them restricted information and then the amazon ceo tattled the scott besson about what happened now normally like that's what he did normally i'd be like actually that's a good that that's like how the system should work because you want you know sort of a circuit breaker there in some way um to prevent the distribution of these models to bad actors like what they what the administration did was they cut off access for foreign um users but yeah i mean it just the thing that was so odd about this is all the little trump propagandists went to twitter and they tried to dance on anthropic's grave and they gave all of us reasons to think oh actually this is just part of this ongoing pissing match between anthropic and the pentagon and um because anthropic doesn't want to create autonomous killer drones or be used in bulk mass survey surveillance of american citizens yeah it was hard to read between the lines and the axio story about it too which is also it's like you know that the axio story sort of came mostly from the administration and there's some administration official on background saying like the real problem is they don't know how to anthropic doesn't know how to communicate with this administration and they don't know how to communicate with this administration and they don't know how to communicate with this administration and the ideological differences are really getting in the way and it's like what does that have to do with a potential security vulnerability that you're saying was the root of the problem here what does the ideological differences in communication have to do with anything also if you know that if you have insight enough to know they're not communicating effectively with you then it seems you know what they're trying to communicate yeah so hey like like you're not being nice enough in how you're handling me you have to if you want me to do what you want you better you better be a little bit uh more sensitive to my issues and my needs in anthropics preparing for an ipo it seems like a great way to damage them in advance of that yes yeah but for what it's worth we should say dana white and a bunch of other participants at the white house event condemned the comments about michelle obama which was nice to see now the right thing to do would be donald trump to call michelle obama and say i'm so sorry that was disgusting but that will obviously but the white house wouldn't even make a just sort of brush bastard refuse to apologize in the moment you can actually see rogan's face as soon as he said it and rogan was sort of like he like backed away like oh god do you see how small his tie was it was very it's like a half a time i was like i want to hear um you could tell that like the yeah the dana white's the people and donald trump was like yeah like donald trump was probably like yeah i mean he probably loved it he's reposted stuff like that in the past well the guy then gave his like medal to donald trump the guy who made the comment and donald trump accepted it so it's just like you know trump posted a video of the two of them right those apes yeah sort of six months ago through the looking glass on that one one more corrupt date that broke as we were preparing to record this gavin newsom said in a video monday morning that he and his wife are being targeted by trump's doj saying that federal agents have been knocking on the doors of their family friends and former employees in newsom's words he said they're digging through quote years and years of documents and quote abusing the grand jury process trying to quote look for crime then there was this line donald trump isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets he's coming after me because i'm considering running for president he then went on to attack trump on corruption for several minutes uh we didn't get a ton of detail from newsom's statement other than the doj seems to be focused on jen his wife i saw a video on newsom's facebook page and it's really interesting to see how much of an influence newsom has had on trump and what he's going to do in the future so i think it's really interesting to see what newsom takes about how this will be great for newsom's potential presidential campaign and fundraising sure but it also seems like a like a fairly chilling preview of what's to come in 2028 for uh any democrat who runs for president i don't know what do you guys think yeah look it's it's nice to say it's uh great for fundraising before we know any of the details about what the charges could be how serious it is what they're trying to do but uh i don't think anybody even if it does you know and uh you know we have uh gone from pam bondi who was uh as like a pliant and willing to do trump's bidding as you could imagine until we got to uh todd blanch who's somehow even worse trump just put his uh personal attorney uh in charge of uh the southern district of new york we have a completely politicized department of justice unlike anything we've ever had before in our history and part of the job will be about not only preventing those things from impacting a impact on our politics directly but also figuring out how to create guardrails and fix it in the future once trump is gone yeah as much as i um i can understand the kind of galaxy brain political takes like the human take is gavin newsom sits down at dinner and is like hey honey this is going to help me in the early states like what are we talking about here it's like horribly chilling for your wife to be potentially prosecuted by the department of justice even if she did nothing wrong it's scary it'll cost them money it'll cost some time um yeah look the maximally cynical view is that trump is doing this because he thinks gavin's talented and a possible competitor to the republican party and wants to take him out of the race preemptively by going after his family um maybe it's all on the There was Gavin Newsom's former aide who was just prosecuted. Maybe it's coming out of that. What we know is Trump has openly called on his attorney general to go after his enemies. He just tried to install Bill Pulte, a man with no national security experience, as the director of national intelligence solely because that man has shown a creativity in using his access to information to go after Trump's critics. So it seems like part of a pattern. Yeah, I mean, it is the cynical view. It's also the like everything we've seen from Trump over the last decade leads you to believe that whoever he thinks is leading in the race for the Democratic nomination, he's going to look to see if there were any kind of possibilities for investigation. Right. Like that's all it takes, too, is. So, yeah. So Gavin Newsom's former aide. Right. Who ended up, you know, being convicted or taking a deal or something based on activities that. Proceeded her time working for Gavin Newsom at all. But doesn't matter. You know, like Jen Newsom has some kind of a nonprofit. And is there is there questions about the nonprofit and the payments like any any thread that that Trump and the his administration can pull on any of these potential contenders? They will. And probably knowing that they can't actually investigate all of them at once when they're all on the primary stage together, they're going to go after the people who are leading in the polls. And really, I think the only way you're going to avoid investigation. From Donald Trump is if you were last place in the polls and suddenly surprise everyone and then win, win a race and then, you know, then they'll get an investigation going pretty fast. Yeah. But that's how it's going to go. We need like a junior soprano to be the kind of to be the face of the operation while Tony's running things behind the scenes. So Ben Jacobs on Twitter was like, this is a good case for Hunter Biden being the nominee since he was already already part of that party. Investigate. Don't give me any ideas. Sorry, flooding himself for this. But I mean, it is it's. It's pretty. It's to me, it was like a preview of even now where we're like, OK, Democrats could do all in the midterms. Everything's fine. Like we're heading to twenty twenty eight. And the idea that this is just going to be some kind of a fair fight. And even if there's a lot between Donald Trump refusing to leave the White House or running for a third term and then everything going swimmingly and nothing happened, there's just a ton of room between. We I think we just can say whoever is the Democratic nominee, regardless of what investigation launched for the primary, there will be an intensive effort to try to paint them as a corrupt criminal between sort of, say, sort of June and the election. They will use all the power at their disposal. They will try to muddy the waters. And by the way, like part of this is this is why selective prosecution is so dangerous. We live in a free society and we know that if you start digging into anyone's finances, taxes, history, you can you can try to drum something up. You can find a discrepancy. You can find something that you can use to bring to a grand jury like the. The that is what it is so dangerous to have a DOJ like this. And you know that the client right wing media, if they find anything, they will say, well, look, this is this was a legitimate investigation. They found this IRS discrepancy. This needed to be punished. And without sort of any understanding of how dangerous it is to have people being chosen as targets to look for crimes. Did Gavin front run this? Yeah. Yeah. So the time sorted. I wonder if they had a call from the time saying we're running this and they got ahead of it or how this went. Because I do. The time story does have some of the some Newsom officials background in there. And it also has some officials, I guess, from the Justice Department as well, though the Justice Department won't comment officially, obviously. They also said that it was like started by federal officials in California, not in Washington. The investigation. But I do think that it was we haven't talked about like the politics of this, but I thought it was smart that that Newsom got out ahead of it and was able to frame it as Trump coming. Yeah. I mean, look, it just shows how much communications have changed over the last decade or two, because normally when there's some sort of criminal prosecution or investigation, you don't say anything. You let your lawyers speak or you don't comment and you don't want to put anything else in the public domain. They view this as a PR battle, which tells you, you know, they probably feel confident about the legal side of things and they just want to get ahead of the political fight. I also think this is going to be a collective action problem because everyone's interests are obviously not aligned here. But for the other Democratic. And no one's announced yet. So it doesn't work right now. But as we get into this, like all the other Democratic candidates, someone gets targeted like this. Even if it's your potential rival, you've got to go out and say that it's absolutely bullshit and stick up for them. I think I'll get stuck up for each other. Yeah. I think that's also free, by the way. Like, I don't think there's a lot of equity for people to just saying, like, I think Trump has a point about Newsom. I don't think there's a lot of. Yeah, but there's a difference between there's a difference between waiting to get asked about it and saying that and then coming out strongly. Yeah, that's true. And saying it's going to be a fucking problem. What about going down to John Bolton? John Bolton's prison and singing him some sort of song through the bars. We shall overcome. Yeah. Where is he right now? Because I saw he has a comment. He cut a deal, right? He's cutting a deal, but he could. I don't think it's gone through the process yet, but I think he could get up to five years, even with this deal. I thought it was just money. I thought he was just paying money. The reporting I read was fine, potentially up to five years. And hopefully for his sake that there'll be some leniency. But like the dude was like sending emails to himself and to his wife and daughter with classified information. It's like the dumbest. It's the dumbest thing you could possibly do. Look, I've said this before. I'll say it again. I hate what Donald Trump has done to the DOJ. I will not be angry if James Comey goes to prison. Wow. 86. I will be angry. Listen, I'll obviously be upset about the injustice, but I'm just saying he used a couple of nights behind those bars to think about what he's done. I'm just he's so tall and he's made so many mistakes. I think it's morally reprehensible. I don't think it's a good thing. I'm just saying. I think he'll think a lot about what he does. Everything he does. I think that has been an imprisonment all of its own. Sure. I don't think he needs to see the actual inside of a jail cell. Just saying. No worries. A bulwark exclusive. Stare up at that ceiling. Run that tin cup across the bars, James Comey. MSNBC reports that the Trump administration has been pressuring DOJ officials to come up with a case against Gavin Newsom. Of course. Yeah. I mean, so there you go. All right. When we come back, Tommy talks to Senator Mark Warner. We'll be right back. You can use the grounds in your garden. Add them to curbside compost or a meal can even pick them up and get them to a small farm for you. And meal offers a 90 day risk free trial. So if you don't love it, you can just send it back. We have a meal recycler in the crooked kitchen. Crooked meal stats. We recycle a total of 255 pounds of food scrapes so far. That's about 51 pounds a month. Crooked staffer Zevi, a great designer, takes the food grounds home to use in her garden. Try meal risk free for 90 days and get $75 off at meal.com slash crooked and use code crooked. That's $75 off at. Meal.com slash crooked and use the code crooked. Hey, everyone. My name is Elijah Cohn, and I've been a producer here at Crooked Media for a decade. I love making our shows with the smart, creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who listen every week. But the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we made of Yvette Kramaswamy grunting while hitting baseballs. No, wait, sorry. The thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through Vote Save America. See, we don't want our shows to only leave you feeling anxious about the state of the world. We want to give you something. You can actually do about it. Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer shifts to help candidates and causes in the 2026 midterms. And we have no plans to slow down as we head into 2028. As far as I know, there's no other media company that does what Crooked does. We make entertaining, thoughtful content that brings people into politics, and then we give them a direct way to get involved. And if you believe in that mission, one of the best ways to support us is by becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps us. Keep making the shows you love and building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics, but helps people change them. And if the mission sounds great, but you feel like you need some sweet subscriber benefits to get you over the finish line, we've got you covered. Subscribers get ad-free shows, plus excellent exclusive podcasts, newsletters, and much, much more. So, thank you for listening and supporting what we do. Head to crooked.com slash friends today to learn more and become a subscriber. This is LeVar Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Let me tell you about Zero. That's X-E-R-O. Zero is a financial management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers. It puts accounting payments, payroll, and analytics all in one place, so you always have one clear picture of your business. With visual dashboards, Zero makes it easy to understand your cash flow, you know exactly what's coming in and what's going out, so you can make smarter decisions. That can help grow. That can help grow your business. Zero's AI can even offer insights to help you make your best move. Zero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at zero.com. My guest today is Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senior U.S. Senator from Virginia. Senator Warner, thanks for doing the show. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks, Tommy. We are speaking on Monday afternoon Pacific time. We're still waiting with bated breath to see if we'll ever see the actual text of whatever Donald Trump negotiated with Iran about the their, you know, the Strait of Hormuz. What do you know about this digitally signed memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran? What do you make on sort of the leaks and reporting on it so far? I know Zippo. I know nothing more than you. And I think, frankly, even my Republican Senate friends have not seen any of this. You know, we do wonder whether this was timed for his birthday or to try to affect the markets today. We do know, I think, this is less than what it appears. And, you know, we knew at some point Trump was going to declare victory. And the sooner we get out of this war of choice, the better. But if, as you know, I hate to kind of suck up, but if you look at your tweets today, you know, you are absolutely right on all four of the goals that Trump laid out. We're not close to any of them. Yeah. It sounds like we maybe have an agreement. To have more talks where they will try to get to an agreement that's about the nuclear program, the ballistic missiles, support for proxies, et cetera. But it's all forward-looking as far as I can tell, right? Yeah. You know, the things we do know are this. The regime is more hardcore now than it was before. The new leader, since we killed his dad, his wife, his kid, more hardcore. We do know that the Iranians have been masters for years at trying to hide the ball on their environment. The idea that we're somehow going to get this without troops on the ground or by some international agreement, God willing, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The fact that the DOD and HEGSEF misrepresented how much we had taken out of the Iranian ballistic missiles, obviously not the case since they're still shooting them off and that doesn't even count their drones. And then we've taken what was an international open gateway of passage straight off Hormuz and Iran will have to have something to say on a going forward basis. None of that makes us, none of that makes our Gulf allies, none of it even frankly makes Israel stronger than when we started 107 days ago. Yeah. I mean, Senator, I noticed in the run-ups of the war, the Iran hawks trotted out of the new talking point, which is that Iran could create a ballistic missile arsenal that was so great that it might be able to prevent the US and Israel from taking out their nuclear infrastructure in the future. So I do want to ask you about the state of that ballistic missile inventory and their capacity to. To manufacture new ballistic missiles. What do we know that you can discuss publicly? Well, we know that we have degraded some, it's both the missiles and their launchers. We took out some of them. The earlier estimates, and I can say this because it's in the public, that we had eliminated 70, 80, 90% are just factually not true. And they have had many of the launchers as well are still existing. They can. They can obviously reconstitute some of these missiles. We have not been able to blow up how all that started. And these missiles are significant, but again, we took down many of them. But as we go into this war of choice, what we have done, and this is the part where the Iranians, I think will come back unfortunately and bite us, is they have been dribbling out their missiles. We have been using both with the missiles and the drones, very expensive interceptors. And we have been using both with the missiles and the drones, very expensive interceptors that cost, you know, two and a half million dollars a piece. And they have bled down our supplies, our supplies, Gulf allies, even Israel's supplies, so that if they have anything close to what we presume, they can continue to bleed that down. And at some point, we won't have the capacity to take them out. One of the reasons why it was so insane that we didn't take the Ukrainians' offer in December, where they were going to say, we will give you our anti-drone technology, and we're going to give you our anti-drone technology, and we're going to give you our anti-drone technology, and we're going to give you our anti-drone technology, which they have the best in the world, which could have at least taken down the Iranian drones. Right, right. And you mentioned the new sort of set of leaders. I mean, the previous Supreme Leader of Iran was quite well known. He'd been around for a while, as were a lot of the senior members of the IRGC and the Iranian military. Then Israel and the U.S. killed a lot of them. Now, Iran is led by this new crop of leaders. You know, the Supreme Leader's son is apparently really wounded and in hiding, but presumably more hardline. Then maybe his father, since we killed his dad, we killed his wife, we killed his kids, I think, reportedly. Now there's a new crop of younger IRGC generals who seem to be more firmly entrenched. Trump keeps saying that the new crowd is more pragmatic. What do you know about the new crowd? There is absolutely zero evidence that anybody in the new crowd is more pragmatic, that is more westward leaning. They may live in fear, and I think we have put fear of God in them. But the idea that they're more willing to make a deal, there's been no evidence to date that I've seen in any intelligence on that. As a matter of fact, the structure in Iran was they always had, they have a government, and they have a former military that's a little bit separate from the IRGC. The one thing that is the case is that the government, which was sometimes more moderate in the more traditional military, they have lost power in this last 108 days. So IRGC, more radical, more in power. Excellent. A big win for us. What we think is maybe the outlines of a future deal would require Israel to honor a ceasefire in Lebanon against Hezbollah as well. Do you have any confidence that Netanyahu or Hezbollah will honor that ceasefire? Because it seems like Netanyahu has a pretty decent political incentive to blow up the deal, given the initial response to it in Israel. I have no confidence that Bibi, who's got his own political problems, and I think in many ways has really hurt Israel's reputation in the region and around the world. And in the, again, tragedy on top of tragedy, I think there was a moment in the fact that Israel is negotiating with the Lebanese government. If we could have actually put some oomph behind that and help the Lebanese government, who does have a military, actually disarm Hezbollah, the people of Lebanon might have come out of this better. They are not now. And instead, you've got the Netanyahu government bombing, not only the Shia, but unfortunately, Druze, Christian, and Sunni villages in the south. And my fear is pushing some of the Lebanese back into the hands of Hezbollah. Yeah. And it sounds like Israel has not agreed to pull its troops out of Lebanon. My understanding is they're occupying up to sort of six miles over the border. I'm just wondering how an ongoing occupation is not likely to lead to renewed, if not in concrete terms, conflict. Was that called a softball question? Yes. You know, it's like, yeah, and we've seen, you know, Bibi's got his own political problems. He's under indictment. He has to maintain this far-right agenda. And my fear is not only Lebanon, but what also is taking place, and one of the reasons why I voted against even giving any more bulldozers to Israel, the other tragedy is that the Israeli government is not going to be able to do anything about it. The other tragedy that's taking place is what's happening on the West Bank as the Israeli settlers, frankly, do awful things on some of the Palestinian villages. Yeah. Just big picture. I mean, I'm struggling with how to talk about this as a Democrat because I think the best option available to Donald Trump was ending the war as soon as humanly possible for a variety of reasons, but especially because I was worried that this was going to lead to a famine in places like Sudan and mass starvation and death because fertilizer and fuel just wasn't getting through the strait. At the same time, I don't think we should give Donald Trump a pass for launching this catastrophic, unnecessary war because all the outcomes he might get through this negotiation process he could have gotten just by talking to them in the first place and not bombing them. So how are you thinking about how to talk about this? Tommy, it is such a, that is a very fair question. I don't want to, I think Trump gets no credit for this war of choice and where we are, and that doesn't even count the $100 billion of assets we've lost in the region. It doesn't cost the $60 billion of increased gas prices. Right. It doesn't cost the effect of in Sudan and elsewhere. But I'm not going to, but the question is, I'm not going to just blast him for ending it because ending it was, you know, this agreement will not stand the test of any scrutiny. You know, I'm not going to give him credit, but I'm glad he ended it rather than continued where, what could have led to even a worse circumstance. So I'd actually think on this one, the, there is no way even a Trumpian figure can turn this into anything other than what it is, is that we, America and our friends are in worse place than we were at the end of February. Yeah. Agreed with you there. Switching gears a little bit. So Trump tried to install a man named Bill Pulte as the director of national intelligence. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why you think he made that selection, whether Pulte even would have met the statutory requirements for the job. I should say he yanked Pulte's nomination after Democrats in the Senate said, hell no, no way. And did that selection make you even more worried about how Trump might abuse the intelligence community? Absolutely. Bill Pulte is a third generation rich kid who literally got thrown out of his own family's, company. And then, taking what would be a relatively benign oversight of the mortgage, Fannie and Freddie, was able to take private information about Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve, Adam Schiff, one of my colleagues, and weaponize that. I do think figures in the White House tried to prevent Trump from doing this, but as always the case, Pulte or whoever speaks to the president last, he got him put in. And this came at a moment in time when we have to reauthorize something called Section 702, which is a critical intelligence tool that the Bidens, Obamas, everybody supported. And we've used our leverage to say, you know, we're not going to reauthorize 702 if Pulte is there. Now, my concern, frankly, is 702 has got enough bells and whistles and audits that if he misuses that, I think we'll find it. I'm more concerned about the fact that this guy who doesn't even have a national security clearance suddenly gets the keys to 18 agencies maliciously or not gets exposed to things that could be a huge security risk. Yeah. And our challenge right now, and this goes down the rabbit hole, you know, Trump has finally appointed somebody else, someone who, you know, I've worked with at times. I still need to ask him, Jay Clayton, who was the former SEC head and the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan. You know, I want to make sure he's not going to interfere in our elections and, you know, basic constitutional rights. But if we delay getting him in, Pulte could still serve and there's nothing we can do. As an interim for a few days and, you know, I think the Democrats in the Senate will have to decide, do we wave to get this through? He will get confirmed, I hope, the sooner or the later so that we don't have Pulte in this office, hopefully ever. Oh, so that's why you're trying to fast track Jay Clayton's nomination to try to shrink the amount of time that Pulte could be in that job? Yes, sir. Oh, that's interesting. And again, and it's like, and the irony, and here's the thing, you know, I had huge problems with Tulsi Gabbard. The current, she was going to stay until the end of the month. Pulte tried to fire her and they advanced her leaving date till this coming Friday. If she would just, I never say I want to say Gabbard stay, but if she would stay until the beginning of July, we could get it done in two weeks. Whether we get it done in one week will be frankly up to my Democratic colleagues who, you know, they can vote against Clayton. They can, you know, vote against 702. But please, let's separate keeping Pulte out. The job and the, the, you know, the renewal of section 702. Yeah, I'm with you on prioritizing keeping Pulte away from all of that information. I do want to ask you about FISA section 702 though, because for those who aren't familiar, this is a provision that lets the intelligence community get information from American telecom companies to turn over the electronic communications of foreign persons located outside of the United States without a warrant. Right. So, you know, I think that's a really important part of the process. Because of the potential for abuse and also because communications to and from American citizens and those foreign persons are often captured in the process without a warrant and could be reviewed in, you know, by people investigating them, the information. So in the past, I have mostly felt like on balance that section 02 was defensible for a variety of reasons. It is the thing that national security professionals will tell you is the most important. But I'll tell you, after the Pulte selection, I no longer have confidence that Trump won't use all of these tools to abuse his authority. So why am I wrong? Like, why am I wrong that Democrats should fight this? Well, first of all, section 702, which has had prior abuses. We've gone through three rounds of reforms. The FBI used to be very callous about how it used it. They went from only 60 percent compliance to 98 percent compliance. On making sure that appropriate checks and balances are dealt with, number one. Number two, my concern with Pulte is so great, not about 702, because there are enough reporting that he will at least be discovered. Now, that may not assuage you, but there will be an audit trail, whereas he could try to get other information that doesn't have near the same audit trail. And then I do think there is a. One of the things that it took me a long time to wrap my head around this. So you've got two Russian spies, one in Moscow, one in Paris. They're talking about these. They keep mentioning this guy, Tommy. And we don't know from listening whether Tommy is collaborating with the Russians or someone the Russians are going after to see if they can hack into Tommy. Right. And actually be a victim. Right. And the idea, this is the part that I don't think people fully understand. If we want to look at who else Tommy has called, because we've got Tommy's name, we've got his number, we can only look at, you know, the numbers, but not the content. If you want to look at the, you know, and say on an email, like Tommy sent something to Mark. If you want to look at the content, you have to get a warrant. But the idea that you could get a warrant because there is this circumstance. That this could be an active live terrorist event and you don't know whether Tommy's about to go do a bomb. The idea that you could get a warrant when you only know the name, when 20% of the time, 15 to 20% of the times, Tommy is the victim, not the bad guy. It is, you know, at the end of the day, I've come down to this is such an important security tool. President Obama supported President Biden, Trump. It is 70% of what we. Was in the. Presidential daily brief, but I understand that people have feel the other way, and we have added, you know, additional requirements that if it's a politician, if it's a religious figure, if it's a media person, you have more hoops, if it's somebody where information might be about their constitutional rights, because you're out protesting ice, you can't, you can't use it there. It will never be. For friends like Ron Wyden, who is a hardcore civil libertarian, we're never going to, I will never satisfy him. I do think there will be at the end of the day, you know, somewhere around 15, 20 Democrats that will still say absent the problem, because here's my problem. This goes away. God forbid something happens. And Donald Trump then says we wouldn't have had this incident. If we had this tool and the irony, just one last point on this is I don't think Donald Trump actually even supports the provision that much, because it took until like six weeks, seven weeks before the bill expired. They. Even came out and formally said he supports it. Right. Well, wouldn't the actual like kind of existing authorities not expire for almost another year if there wasn't a reauthorization? That is, again, the where the rubber hits the road in 20. There is the ability that this authority is certified once a year and it would be maintained until March. Right. When this came up under Biden, what we heard from the telcos, and this is mostly telcos and the Googles and the hyperscalers. Right. They said to Biden's security team, if this expires, we are no longer going to participate because we don't have indemnification. This expired on Friday night. So we're now into an area where, you know, who is right? Will they continue to participate or not? One of the telcos today told me, thank goodness, that they will participate. The others, we don't have an answer. And what is insane to me is I'm the freaking vice chair, which former chair of the intelligence. I should know whether they are participating or not. Right. Right. And and in a normal world, the Justice Department, if we still had real lawyers, would have tried to get an injunction to try to force them to continue to participate until it was litigated out. So we don't end up with this gap. My understanding, they've not even filed suit yet. So we will. There will be this this gap. Hopefully not too long, but we will find out whether the concern I had that they won't participate without indemnification is true or not. OK, just as long as I'm treating you like my my deep state therapist. I mean, is it wrong to focus on the DNI when Kash Patel is just as unqualified and has more authorities to conduct do things that are abusive against Americans via the FBI? Well, I have gone through a long litany of Kash Patel abuses and mistakes, and he should not. The DNI does get keys to all 18 agencies, frankly, the DNI to go nerdy again. That whole role needs to be slimmed down, probably reexamined. It came out after 9-11, well-intentioned, but grew too much. But no, Kash Patel scares the hell out of me. And what also scares the hell out of me is we have seen intelligence professionals in other agencies, the NSA, which is our our spying organization in terms of listening in. And they fired the guy who Tim Hawk was there was a career professional because Laura Loomer went after him or the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency told the truth about the first bombing of Iran a year ago where he said, yeah, we whacked him pretty good, but we didn't obliterate the nuclear program. Obviously, the truth or we wouldn't be back in on this. So you've got plenty of I got plenty of reasons to keep you up at night in terms of concerns. You ever seen Kash Patel chug a beer? The guy doesn't spill a drop. Let me tell you, man, just on just on video, although I. I will, I won't even, I'm hesitant to say this, but there are some colorful pictures videos online about Mr. Pulte as well. Oh, I've seen one of those. The gentleman before him seems to be having a good time. Senator, thank you so much for doing the show. Maybe when we learn what's actually in this deal, we could talk again. That'd be nice. Love to. Thanks. Appreciate it. Godspeed. Take care. That's our show for today. Thanks to Senator Warner for coming on. We'll be back in the feed on Friday with a special episode the three of us and Dan will be recording in Chicago at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. Fun. Nice. Talk to everybody soon. Pods of America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Hey everyone, my name is Elijah Cohn and I've been a producer here at Crooked Media for a decade. But the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we made of Vivek Ramaswamy grunting while hitting baseballs. No wait, sorry. We want to give you something you can actually do about it. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love and building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics but helps people change them. This is Dr. Laurie Santos from the Happiness Lab. Research on the science of happiness consistently points to the importance of social connection. That's why I've been thinking about how I can turn more of my shared experiences into rituals. Think setting a beautiful table and making even the little moments feel a bit special. 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