A Man, No Plan, Iran

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Welcome to Talking Feds. A round table that brings together prominent former federal officials

and special guests for dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day.

I'm Harry Litman. The war in Iran expands and grows more deadly by the day. It now has drawn

in more than a dozen countries, including some outside the Middle East. Russia has now entered

the fray helping Iran whose air defenses have been ravaged to direct their still large arsenal

of drones. In the meantime, the administration continues to offer a shifting series of explanations

for why we started the war in the first place. And it seems to have no firm idea of what we are

trying to achieve and more importantly, when our involvement will end. The news packed week

also brought the first set of primaries for the midterms. Both parties had reason for concern

that the prevailing mood in the country is anti incumbent. The closely watched Senate race in

Texas remains in flux with a runoff on the Republican side that could prove pivotal for the democratic

candidate's chances in the fall. Trump fired Christy Nome as Secretary of Homeland Security,

the first sacking in his cabinet during Trump 2.0. Nome had assembled a spectacular track

record of blunders and embarrassments, but her fatal move was her testimony that Trump had

green-lighted a controversial ad campaign. To unpack a turbulent week of war, elections and turn

over in the cabinet were joined by a terrific group of expert commentators. And they are.

Jonathan Alter, an award-winning author, filmmaker, columnist and MSNBC political analyst,

he's authored more books than I can count, but about FDR, Obama, Jimmy Carter, and most recently

the felony trial of Donald Trump, which we attended together. And he's got a great sub-stack

entitled Old Goats. Everyone check it out. And John, thanks for being here.

Thanks, Harry. Connor Lam. Connor represented parts of Pittsburgh in Congress from 2018 to 2023.

Before that, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the great and exalted western

district of Pennsylvania, my old office, and spent 2009 to 2013 on active duty in the Marine Corps.

He now practices law at Klein and Spectre, and teaches a course on faith and democracy at Duquesne

University. Connor Lam, thank you very much for your service. And thanks for joining Talking Feds.

Go Steelers. Go Steelers. What about that McCutchen move? Can you imagine the in grade?

I hope the whole city is up in arms about that. Yeah, I didn't say go pirates for a reason.

There you go. And Marlaison, the national political correspondent for NPR, she's reported on

seven presidential elections. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's politics podcast,

as well as its programs morning edition. And all things considered always a pleasure to welcome

you. Thanks for returning, Marla. Happy to be here. All right. I think we need to start this week

with the war in Iran, which seems to be spinning out of control just this morning as we tape.

Trump called for Iran's unconditional surrender. We are at four explanations and counting for the

war, regime change, preemptive strike, nuclear program, support of Israel. Oh, also respond

to terrorism and the ever elastic Trump reason I had a feeling. Why can't the administration

just get its message straight on what we're doing there? Because maybe it doesn't know. I mean,

the impression you get is the president who's making it up as he goes along. And unless this is

some incredibly four-dimensional chess, which usually after he offers six different contradictory

explanations, you get the four-dimensional chess analysis. That if you don't have clearly

articulated objectives, you're not going to get in trouble politically for not reaching them

or not achieving them. I think the president wants to be able to walk away whenever he wants to

walk away. He says he wants to say in the next leader of Iran, but we know that regime change has

never ever happened from the air alone. And that's so far what the president seems to think he

can do. Just bomb them. They'll give up and he can claim another victory. And most experts say

that's highly unlikely. Can you just elaborate a bit? So that's right, regime change normally

requires what that we seem not to have even taken the first step of. Boots on the ground. Now he

hasn't completely ruled that out. Either has the defense secretary, but generally it takes

boots on the ground. I mean, look at Gaza. Yes, some priming of the opposition. Look at Gaza.

Gaza is rubble. Who still controls Gaza? Hamas. I mean, if Israel couldn't even achieve

regime change with that much aerial assault, I don't know how you do it in Iran.

Yeah, another way to think about it is the same people who had all the guns in Iran a week ago

have all the guns there today. I mean, they might be suffering because of all these bombs dropped

from the sky, but like they still have the power to control things until someone stronger comes

along to house them. And you know, it sounds like that was another thing the administration woke

up to after the fact they're leaking the idea that they want to send these Kurds in there from

however far away. It sounds like they started working on that after the attack began, which is

something if you were rational, you would do on the front end. Let me serve up a comment based on

both Mara and Conner's comments. I mean, Mara says, well, you know, maybe some commentators,

I don't think any of them here will be taking the hypothesis that they've got it all thought through.

Others would seem that it's completely being made up as we go. We're six days into war.

It's touched 12 countries. Russia now has become involved. Do we think anybody there has the idea

of an end game or game plan generally? Well, Israel should. Now, I think you can do actually,

I mean, just to back up for a second, like the Iraq war, this war was launched with a lie. Trump

said that Iran posed an imminent threat. The Republican control Senate Intelligence Committee

said that they won't have an ICBM until 2035 at the earliest, not exactly imminent threat to the

United States. So that was their first reason. That's really the only reason that you can identify

that's to start a war is if there's an imminent threat. After that point, I do think, and there's

certainly not playing three-dimensional chess, but I do think that they have an overall objective

which is regime change if possible. It's highly unlikely for the reasons that we've talked about,

the protesters have no guns, and a government is defined by a group of people who have a monopoly

on violence, and the regime still does. So that's highly unlikely to happen. It's

foolhardy to think that the Kurds are going to be able to come down from the north and dislodge

the regime, but they do have an objective to destroy Iran's military capacity. So I've, you know,

ran a foul of some friends in the last day or two because I don't want this war to stop right now.

I don't think it's actually responsible for the war to stop right now. We should never have

gotten into it. It was a terrible idea. But once you start to not complete the mission of destroying

the Iranian Navy, which is what Trump laid out at the beginning, you know, just to destroy like a

few ships and then call it a day is not really a good idea. At this point, I don't know whether it

takes another five days, seven days, two weeks. I don't know what the time frame is, but you know,

they should try to finish the job even though Iran will pretty quickly rebuild, you know,

certain of these military capabilities. They need to, you know, as long as we're at it,

make sure that we really disable their armed forces. But isn't that the military objectives

are pretty clear? I mean, destroy the Navy. Everybody understands what that means. But what happens

after you do that? Or is this just one of those Israeli style mowing the lawn projects where

every five years you go in and you destroy the Navy again? We don't know. That is what it's looking

like it will be. I'm just cautioning sort of the ceasefire now crowd, you know, like to stop it

today. It's even though they have no game plan, it's not going to end well. They're going to be a

lot of unanticipated consequences. Mow the lawn right now since we got the mower revved up.

And we probably will have to do it again in five years, as you say. Does that include their

nuclear capability? Not really. I mean, I think that I don't know that that's actually really going

to be all that affected by what we're doing because of the wave. A lot of that stuff is buried.

You know, it looked like the takeaway from the bombing last summer was sure it was a setback,

but it was not a kill shot. And that was even with the most accurate bombing down into the ground

that we were capable of. So it seems like sort of foolish for us to be saying that there's a

final answer on the nuclear stuff just from this bombing campaign. Oh, yeah, there's definitely

not a final answer. I was just going to say that as long as we're talking about Trump lies,

when he said last June that we had totally obliterated quote unquote their nuclear capacity,

that was a lie. And it was clear at the time that it was a lie because they didn't release any

photographs, you know, that would confirm that they had it fordo and the other facilities that

the bunker busters had actually taken it out. So, you know, the press stop paying attention,

but it was clear that was like what we don't know right now and doesn't really bow that well is

did they go back to fordo? They do have other bunker busters to try to

set them back a little further. There was some reporting with the underground facilities. They

were trying to explode bombs that would basically seal them with the the weight of the bombs and the

damage that the bombs did and that that could further set back their program. But, you know,

they took a lot of stuff out of those facilities and they will still have some kind of

program, even if we were there for two years, you know, they would have something that

was left over. So, let me serve this up if I could, John, to Connor and Mara. Let's accept

John's premise. I want to say Connor may disagree, but I doubt it as the lawyer in the group that

this it was patently illegal. The reason stated matter, of course, if it were true that they were

about to attack the US, that alone might have provided a justification on the law of war,

but so now we're in illegal war, accepting his view for purposes of this question that we've

got to finish the job. Do you agree that finishing the job means basically mowing down the navy for

now or would you have a different supposition about what the end point would be?

Based on everything the president says, that finishing the job according to him would be

regime change. I think he's dug that hole. I mean, I don't know how he turns this into Venezuela

where the lead singer is nabbed, but the band plays on. I mean, I don't think he can do that in

Iran. I think if they survive, the regime survives, that's a win for them. I think it's more than

just taking out their navy. Because of what he said, you know, that he wants to say in who's

going to be the next leader and regime change and the Iranians should rise up. And yeah, I mean,

I think he's set the bar kind of high for himself, even though he's also made a lot of contradictory

statements. Including just this morning talking about unconditional surrender, Connor, any thoughts?

Well, I just, I hate to be the difficult guest who doesn't want to accept the premise of your

question, but I think it can't, we can't fail to mention that the gang who literally can't

shoot straight appears to have killed 175 people at a girl's school, most of them children.

There is a risk of something like that happening every hour that we're engaged in this

bombing campaign. And I don't know if that was AI targeting or just, you know,

a headset and company like not having their head on straight, but there's real consequences to

this. And that's why it's important. I think not to push past the question of like what the job

even is and who decided that was the job and whose interest that job is because I still can't tell

how any of this countered an imminent threat of the United States. I can understand it from

Israel's perspective kind of. I still don't think it's all that smart, but I can't understand it

from the US perspective because of this nuclear issue we've talked about because of the fact that

even if they had nuclear bomb, they couldn't get it to the United States since they don't have the

right missiles, all these things. And so there's even answering question like what is finishing the

job mean is almost impossible from our perspective. Yeah, and also maybe the most operative thing

that Trump has said is when he said it was my feeling and at another time he said it was my opinion.

He didn't say the intelligence community came to me with these incredible granular information

about their capabilities or intentions or how fast they were moving. No, it was his opinion and

his feeling and that is what I think is going to drive this going forward. Yeah, I was reminded in

a bone chilling way of his quote last month. I think it was in the New York Times or January saying

my the only thing that constrains me is my own sense of moral authority. I mean his statements

unconditional surrender. I'll decide who the leader is. They're just horrifyingly irresponsible

things to say, but Trump being Trump, he doesn't get locked into anything. And so about three weeks

from now, when the 30 to 60 day requirements that are in the War Powers Act kicks in,

you have some Republicans now on the hill who are saying, okay, right now he doesn't need our

permission, but under the law, Obama didn't get our permission. They have some good arguments that

presidents have been conducting aerial campaigns without congressional authorization for a very

long time. And you know, we haven't had an actual declared war since World War II. And when

the Bush has got some authorization, it was, you know, with a lot of boots on the ground, which

was a very different situation. And by the way, just something about Hegseth, who I think, you know,

should resign a maybe the worst Secretary of Defense in history. But when he said he wasn't

ruling out boots on the ground, that was the right thing to say. And again, we're so sort of

blinded by our justifiable contempt for this evil administration that sometimes we miss when

somebody actually says the right thing. So remember in the 90s, I wrote a column in Newsweek

where the Clinton administration took ground troops off the table. They said,

this will just be an aerial campaign against Milosevic and Serbia. No ground troops. I'm saying

you never say that to your adversary. Why would you do that? That's just a dumb thing to say

in war to take ground troops off the table. So if they actually put ground troops in there,

it would be cataclysmic. I don't think they will. I don't even think Trump will will ever do that. And

my sense of this, nobody knows where it's going. I'm not pretending to. But that when the 30-day

period of time elapses, at that point, Trump will just do a 180, he'll declare victory, he'll say,

we've destroyed the Iranian military. You know, I told you, at the beginning, I didn't know

what was going to come next. And we're out. And a month from now, we're not going to be there.

That's just my feeling. All right. Let me, I want to make one legal point. But certainly,

John's observation, he has again and again and again declared victory in ways that have

completely contradicted the sort of terms of engagement that he previously had drawn. Just for

people listening, that's 30 and 60 days in the wake of Vietnam, the Congress passed the War Powers

Act, which provides that they seek authorization initially. But if it isn't given, then at the end

of a 30-day period, supposedly, things stop. Of course, it's going to be the opinion of the

administration, if push comes to shove, that that very act is unconstitutional infringement on the

president's authority. So you may see that kind of legal battle. But I wanted to turn to Congress,

both chambers this week voted down an effort to force the administration to seek authorization.

War powers vote in the Senate, Senator Federman of Pennsylvania, and Rand Paul were the only ones

to swap sides in the House a little bit more. Where are the Dems now about this war,

which does have its own kind of momentum? And what are their practical options for any sort of

rear guard opposition? I think that the heart of the party is where most of the people are that

voted for the resolution, which is I think everybody but for in the House. And it's, you know,

there's no minute threat. There's no reason to put our troops in harm's way. We should have learned

all the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. And oh, by the way, the number one issue is the economy,

and we're spending at least one billion. I heard a report today that the Pentagon may be spending

two billion dollars every day. And so I think you'll hear a lot from Democrats about what you

could be getting for two billion dollars a day, which is quite a bit. This Congress and the Senate

figure in at all going forward to what happens here. Well, I don't think if they do right now,

I think if American casualties mount in oil prices stay high, and this war gets even more unpopular,

maybe you get a critical mass in Congress to push back against it, but it's very hard to

to imagine that. I mean, Congress has emasculated itself on so many issues, but none more vigorously

than this than more powers. I mean, Trump is in the first president who's violated this principle.

So I think that politically, as long as we're just bombing, and Americans aren't dying,

and oil prices aren't going through the roof, I think that the argument is a good one for Democrats

to say it's two billion dollars a day, as he brought your prices down. And here's what that could

be buying, but I don't see a big revolt in Congress over that. There'll be an interesting test

coming up fast because they're spending so much that they're going to need to go back to the hill

to get more money in a supplemental. And DHS is still shut down, and they've started making

linking that argument of how can you keep our homeland security shut down when we're at war,

and there's a risk of terrorism. And so it'll be interesting to see which Democrats kind of,

I don't want to say fold, but basically give into the administration now that they have started

this war and say, well, we've got to properly fund it, and which ones hold the line. And that'll

give you a sense kind of of how strongly the party's feeling about this. Mara mentioned the

unpopularity of this. It is so striking, and it really surprised me. So maybe somebody can

correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that in the entire history of polling, which goes

back to the 1930s, that there has never been a case where in the immediate aftermath of the

commencing of hostilities, the president wasn't well above 50% proof, because it's a rally around

the flag. So that is astonishing. It's basically unprecedented ever. And before polling,

you know, it's hard to imagine a president going to war without public support. And it's not

like they're at 45% support, or 40% support. They're in the 20s. In Republican polls,

this is an astonishingly unpopular war. It really is. And that's including MAGA, which is sort of

on board by very high margins. So if you take them out, this is an overwhelming, and this, in fact,

is where I wanted to end. I understand how Congress has taken itself out of the picture,

but with this kind of unpopularity. And you know, it's only going to get worse. It seems to me.

There will be other episodes like the one Connor mentioned, and there will be more casualties.

He's already gone to war without preparing the nation. And as far as we can tell, without

preparing the military for some endgame, but can he really stay the course if there's just this

tsunami of public opinion against? We're not predictors, but you know, what about the public

factor here? Well, I mean, that's another question that is really going to be measured

when the price tag comes to quite soon, because he ultimately, just like anything else, he's

going to need every single Republican vote to get this money through somehow, plus some Democrats,

unless he wants to, you know, threaten to eliminate the filibuster over it in the Senate. So we're

going to have that fight pretty quick. My guess is enough Democrats will back down, because they're

going to not want to say that they're depriving the troops of anything. But then really soon,

we're in midterm election season. And I think he just took a bad year for him and made it a lot

worse. And if you're dealing with a lopsided, you know, house majority of the other party,

I don't know how you sustain a war like that, but maybe he thinks that maybe he thinks it's 2004

and he's George W Bush. Yeah, or he's just trying to anything to shake up the dynamic. Yeah,

this is the president who would take big risks. There's no doubt about it. The state of the union

huge risk where you don't even try to empathize with people's trouble paying their bills.

All you do is say how great it is. You don't have a single nod to we have more work to do,

or I feel you're paying not at all. And then this that he that he stayed silent for the first

what three, four days, no explanation, no trying to lay out his case for the public. I mean,

these are really really risky. It shows you how invincible he feels he is, I think.

Let's leave it here for now. I suspect we'll be talking all the more next week. But let's move to

the subject Connor raises. The first primaries are in the books. So I wonder what signals you think

they provided about where we are heading into the midterms. If you see a dominant sentiment,

is it anti Trump anti maga or is it more anti incumbent because both sides had a few surprises come

their way? Well, anti incumbent and the incumbents are the Republicans and Democrats are really

energized big turnout for them. That doesn't mean that they're going to wave a magic wand in

when Texas, but it it's amazing. The Democratic Party is at historic low approval ratings and

Democratic candidates keep on winning, you know, in some cases bigger than curvature of the earth. I

mean, it's it's really something. She's right. You know, that's just one of those polling numbers

that means less and less. It's almost a manufactured statistic because not that many people

make choices on the basis of their abstract idea of a party. I think that, you know,

I spent a lot of time sort of on the trail still to around Pennsylvania and the huge premium

is on new voices. And so, you know, we don't have enough data really just from last Tuesday to say

where the party is, but one of the reasons I think you're seeing it feels like anti incumbent in

both parties is because they want newer people, they want younger people who know how to communicate

kind of across platforms. And that was something that Talleriko pulled off really well. His primary

almost didn't become a moderate versus left or black versus white thing so much as it was like

styles of campaigning. He was he had the whole range in his arsenal. It was really impressive.

Maybe it's the Mamdani playbook. It seemed as if Crockett certainly didn't, but okay, so

everyone's gone right to Texas. Let's focus on that for a few minutes. We did have Talleriko

defeating Crockett and he came from some points down. And then on the other side,

Ken Paxton and John Corden. It seems to me that if you're Talleriko's folks, you want Paxton to

win that primary is a more extreme candidate. But, you know, there's been focus on Texas

seems to me again and again in the last six, eight, ten years. And it's always kind of come back

to ground as a Republican stronghold. What's going on? Do you think? And is it really in in reach?

So it's in reach, but to say that it's likely that Talleriko is going to win is, I think,

inaccurate. It's possible, but we're not at a point yet where we can say it's likely. And

part of this is just personal experience. You know, I had a flashback to when I was covering the

Ducakis campaign almost 40 years ago. Oh, really? When we were ten. Exactly. And we're in Texas

and we're at a funeral. Ducakis is attending a funeral of a big Latino voter registration guy.

And I'm there for Newsweek. And there's all this talk about how Texas didn't have blue and red

then. That's how long ago this was Texas is going Democratic now because this guy who just died

in his organization and all the people that the whole funeral was like a celebration almost

of how much progress they had made in registering Latinos. And this was going to turn Texas blue

again, a Democratic again. And of course, it didn't happen. And we went through it with better

work. We've had many examples over the last, I don't know, how many years has it been since a

Democrat has been elected statewide in Texas 16? Since 1994, I think. 94. Okay, really. In Texas.

Oh, you mean since the Democrat is one statewide? Yeah. Yeah. So in Richards, what do I think so?

You know, what's going to happen is, and I tell Rico is a gifted candidate. And he has probably

the best chance of anybody for a variety of reasons. But if Kornin is the nominee, which I think

is more likely now, because the indications are Trump is going to endorse him and that would then

be decisive in the runoff, he will spend millions of dollars exposing what are quite liberal

positions by Taloriko on a wide variety of issues. You know, he wasn't really to the right of

he was just speaking in a different tone, a much more sensible moderate tone, but he's quite

vulnerable in Texas on the issues. And Kornin will raise them and Kornin is sort of a plain vanilla

guy who I think quite a number of independent voters will come home to in November. So if

Paxton wins, I think Taloriko has a very good chance of beating Paxton, but not Kornin.

What do you, John? What do you make of Paxton's weird offer to drop out if they just got rid of

the filibuster for the save act? The guy is a frickin lunatic. I mean, I didn't understand that. Yeah.

That is a that is a viral social media demand right now. And so that's where Paxton's coming from.

He probably has someone telling him, you know, that's what the base wants. Oh, I guess that's

what the base wants, but it's offered to drop out if they did that. You would normally think that

means it's totally far fetched. That's what would make it safe. But my understanding is it's very

likely. And that's a whole different grave, grave concern if they're able to pass it by dropping

filibuster, right? Very likely. What are you saying? My understanding is that Trump is pushing hard,

the White House is pushing hard and they will suspend the filibuster in order to pass the

save act. At least that's considered a strong possibility. Really to pass an act that will

disenfranchise millions of women who have a different name on their birth certificate than they do

on their voting records, they're going to disenfranchise. Precisely. You heard that right. That's a

cherished goal. But that's because Trump still believes that the fewer people who vote the better it

is for Republicans, which I don't know if that's true anymore. Well, it wasn't true in 2024,

I mean, was not. Yeah. My guess is they think it's a question of control. I think they believe it,

it hands them some discretionary control in who's going to be voting where, which is like a control

panel in their minds. But yeah, I think the just return quickly to what Jonathan was saying about

Texas and Telleriko. If you think about one of the biggest long-term challenges for the Democratic

Party, it's how we ever get more than 50 or 51 Senate seats in this country. You have to win either

a Texas and Ohio and Iowa and Alaska. And there's just so many people in our party that believe you

can do that by repackaging the same set of policy positions and make no sacrifices. And that's,

you know, people like me have run into that buzz saw in the past where, you know, it's actually like

a slight heterodoxy goes a long way in some of these places. And so, you know, James is young and

although he has a lot of quite liberal things, his background, he strikes me also as Savia enough

to know that it might be time to show people you're able to think differently on one or two issues.

And I'll be curious to see if he can do that. So wait, I have a question for Connor. So you think the

road back to the center where you can actually win rural areas and red states, which you guys have

to do after that by the 2030 census or you're practically extinct in the electoral college.

Is that is the path to there through cultural issues and moving to the center on cultural issues?

Is that what you're saying? It's certainly one path. You know, I never like to be the one that says

there's some like sort of silver bullet solution. But what I think I'm saying is slightly more broad,

which is that voters in these states would need to look at a democratic candidate and have the

confidence to know they aren't taking their orders from Washington because they are different in

some way. So it could be a cultural way, could be an economic way. You know, down in Texas, it could

be as simple as like some kind of focus on oil and gas jobs and how important they are and maybe

showing that you're not going to let those be taken away under democratic administration. I don't

know what it actually, but just that slight maverick quality, I think opens the door with people

for you to make your case. And without that, if you're another democrat just in slightly

different packaging, my experience is you don't really get through the door.

This might be worth noting. In Conner's state, the governor does as best I can tell exactly the same

in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as a, you know, garden variety standard issue Democrat. You know,

the old saw as it goes. Mara is right Pennsylvania. Yeah. Alabama in between. Yeah. Wow. So a guy

named Shapiro is doing well in Alabama. It's like pencil Tucky. Yeah. Exactly. In the tea, in the tea

we'll call it. Somebody who's not doing very well is Tony Gonzalez, who just this morning announced

he's suspending his campaign after wow, talk about I just read the headlines in the paper too, but

his he hasn't a fair with the staffer who sets herself on fire and kills herself. What does the

Ray? So the Republicans pushed him. He's and he's now withdrawing any sense of what that looks

like down there after Gonzalez. The reason the Republicans cut him loose is they're really scared.

Not just about losing the house, but about losing in the Rio Grande Valley, where they just carved

out these new seats. That's where the new fives are, right? And they could be a dummy manter.

It could be a dummy manter. It could be. So that's a great. Can we make that the title of this

episode? That's. Yeah, dummy manter. I'd never heard that. Oh, you've never heard that. That's a

gerrymander that backfires. Yeah. Because every time you make a new district, you have to make it a

little less solid or you make the old district less solid. Right. So it's risk of that. And that's

how the Democrats run up the score and they win 35 seats instead of, you know, at margin of 10 seats

because they've diluted these seats. But to me, the single most important exit poll statistic from

2024 was that 47% of Latino men voted for Trump, whether that was pull up the ladder, whether it

was on cultural issues, whatever the explanation was. And this is up from maybe as high as 30% in

prior elections. George W. Bush did well with Latino men in Texas, better than average in his

two presidential elections. But generally the Democrats, you know, they got like

better than 60% of Latino men. They got just a little over 50% of them this last time. Now all

of the indications, whether it's in Latino areas of New Jersey, what we're seeing in Texas,

Tallerico did really well with Latinos, a tremendous number showed up in the Democratic primary,

which contributed to the fact the overall vote was higher for Democrats than for Republicans.

They don't like seeing their cousins spread eagled at home depot. You know, they don't like it.

And, and this is a huge, huge problem for the Republicans in, in at least the next couple cycles

that all of those advances they made with Latino men are gone. They don't exist anymore.

And that's the new political reality that we have that I think contributes powerfully to

be to why the Democrats have a very good shot this year.

And they sure placed a big bet on it. And it'll be quite the story if it turns out to backfire

and be a, again, a dummy, dummy manter, dummy manter. Yeah. I love it. Okay. Let's turn to

another scandal written, uh, Republican. We have the first, uh, domino to fall in the cabinet,

Christine Nome, in stark contrast to Trump 1.0. He's really kept everyone in notwithstanding

scandal after scandal, Bondy, Epstein, Patel, Kennedy, et cetera. What made Nome the first head

to fall? Why her? I think there were a bunch of reasons. One is the immigration policy turns out

to be incredibly unpopular. She was the face of it. And her making herself the face of it was

another problem for her because you can only have one Trump or one Trumpy person in the administration.

And you can't have somebody else who's kind of on TV all the time being the face of the deportation

effort. And according to Republican senators, aggrandizing herself and boosting her name recognition.

But so somebody, there had to be a scapegoat. She didn't have a lot of good will with members of

Congress. She had, you know, annoyed a critical mass of administration officials. But I think the

bottom line is the immigration policy is very unpopular. And somebody had it take responsibility

for that. And I just saw a poll number that I was very surprised at because up until now, we've said,

you know, the general immigration policy is popular, securing the border, deporting criminals,

who are also undocumented. But people like the idea, but don't like the idea of how ice is going

about it. But apparently in a new you-gov poll, half of Americans supported abolishing ice. Now,

that is an extraordinary number. It just shows you how unpopular it is.

It still think it's not smart for Democrats to say abolish ice.

Oh, I totally agree 100%. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just surprised that people would

express their anger by saying they agreed with abolishing ice. I'm not saying Democrats should run

on them. That would be almost as dumb as defunding the police. Yes, yes. But I'm not talking about

what where the Democrats should land. And I agree with John. It's saying you want to abolish

eyes or defund the police. It's always, it's already been proven to be a really, really bad idea

politically. I just was struck by a poll where half of Americans said they supported abolishing ice.

Not that they really do, but that they're so angry about how ice is operated, that they were,

that that, that we got that number. On March 28th, a lot of people are going to go out to the

No Kings protests, probably over 10 million, there were 7 million the last time. And a lot of them

will have signs of abolish ice. And my feeling is the sign should say stop ice. Yeah. Rain in

ice, restrain ice, reform ice. But if you say abolish ice, the kind of moderate independent

voter is going to go, okay, so we're not going to have any immigration enforcement. Like what are

you talking about? No, no, that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Yeah, no, I know, I know.

I know you were just saying people are really, really against ISIS tactics. And like you said,

they don't want to see their cousin spread eagle in Home Depot. Yeah. The other thing about

Nome, I think just that significant is that they want to close the whole Minneapolis chapter and

have everybody forget about it. And I think the Iran, the Iran war is part of a major distraction

effort. And it's just, it just can't be repeated enough times that we all watch two Americans get

murdered on screen. And there's no active prosecution going in either one of those situations. And so

they want you to believe that, you know, sort of finally firing Nome closes that chapter as if,

you know, Trump's leadership stepped in when things got out of control. But that's not true.

Like it's just one more fig leaf for the things that they're trying to do.

An excellent point. And I'll just say as to Nome's role there, she actually is the one who set

with no proof. And she's tried to lay it on the officials in the field. But there's no proof of

that that these were acts of domestic terrorism. And as long as she's around that that quote is

going to stay with her. There's reporting that that was Stephen Miller's line. He told her

to say it. I'm not, I haven't independently confirmed that. There's other very interesting

reporting that sounds solid to me that Susie Wiles or somebody else brought Nome's testimony

where she said that Trump had signed off on $220 million in ads with feature her. Now Trump,

we all know he doesn't like any ads that don't have him in it. So he's, his reaction to that is

she lied and said that I signed off on $220 million in ads with her face, not me. I never heard

about these ads. She lied, fire her. So there was, I can't remember what paper, I think the journal

may be reported that and that made it intuitive sense to me. In my view, that was the,

the pivotal factor in the answer. I had a substack on Friday to this point. You know, he's led

everyone run, ragged and get away with everything. But that, you know, embarrassed to him and the

public campaign, which came up in her hearing, you know, she put him in a bad light. And that to

me was the cardinal rule that she violated more than anything else that really was the reason for

her sacking. Harry, can I ask you a question? Why do you think there have been no arrests

in Minneapolis of the people, of the murderers basically? The DA is apparently very good there.

Why haven't there been arrests? Yeah, a couple of things. And Connor might have a view here as well.

I think there will be arrests. And there is a little bit of infighting between the DA of

Hennepin County and the attorney general of Minnesota. But knowing that the United States is going

to be imposing obstacles and knowing further that the real event will play out in federal court when

the defendants, the the ICE officials who shot them move for immunity. I think counsels

Minnesota and they are getting this counsel from all sides to have all ducks in a row before you

bring either murder or manslaughter charges under Minnesota law. Because once you're in there,

you actually have a sort of side antagonist of the federal government. Never it's unprecedented and

kind of nauseating. But I think it's that that they have sensibly decided we've got to

anticipate everything because we're going to go into a field in federal court where the feds

are opposing us. I wonder Connor, if you have any different view having been a long time at USA

yourself? No, I think that's probably right. And you just have to keep in mind that they will

need to compile a mountain of evidence to try to withstand all these obstacles that Harry's

talking about. Think about how hard it must be for them to get access to a lot of that evidence

right now. It's so different. Oh, they won't. They won't have the car. They won't have

their stuff. They won't have. On the other hand, and this has been a theme, you know, including

other topics we've talked about, the power of video in 2026, right? I mean, it's just a complete

game changer, including in the war, including the point you're making about people spreading,

gilded in the parking lots. That just sort of cuts through viscerally. And one other point about

it is if you have enough videos as they do, New York Times did a great job of this very quick

war story is, you know, when I worked in the Rodney King case, there was only that one grainy video

and it closed all kinds of problems. When you have 30 and you can mix and match, it's the equivalent

of like a whole forensic analysis. Who knew that the cell phone would be a guardrail of democracy?

Yes. 100% right? The cell phone camera. The cell phone camera would be a guardrail of

democracy. The cell phone and the whistle. And who knew that Minneapolis would be the new

Selma? You know, when history is happening, it's sometimes hard to recognize it.

We know that they went there because of their great antipathy to Somalians. And they've never

explained why sending in ice troops was going to ferret out financial fraud. I never understood

the connection there. But, you know, Minneapolis was a, was a very risky place to pick because they

have one of the highest civic cultures in America. Yes, yes. And the highest community cultures in

America. They've now set the standard, right, with the phone and the whistle. So wherever they go,

it will turn into Minneapolis, especially if they're going into blue states because they don't

want to go into red states because they have a harder time. Right, right. They're the blue states

that they go into. It's not like there's some other city where they're not going to be people

with cell phones and whistles. So I think Christopher Elin really got it right in the New York times

yesterday. The former foreign minister of, right, Canadian. And a brilliant, brilliant woman.

She said 2025 was the year of capitulation. And 2026 is the year of resistance. And we went

from fear as contagious last year to courage as contagious this year.

All right. It is now time for a spirited debate brought to you by our sponsor Total Line and

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This method is most frequently used in the top rosé-producing region of the world,

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a spirited debate. Just a couple more follow-ups on Nome. First notice, and this is true of the other

people who were forced out Lindsay Halgan, Alina Habba. You know, in Trump 1.0, there's a whole

kind of body count, Kelly and others of people who leave the fold. Trump was pretty careful

here to talk nice, and Nome took the hint and responded, and she's got some august sounding

title that makes no sense to me. Is this part of the strategy to, you know, the guillotine falls,

but she still is... Well, you want to keep her in the tent. You know, that's what I mean.

That's what I mean. That's what rocks from outside. Just like Mike Walsk goes to UN, you know,

from the White House. And not only in the tent, I think this administration that has done some

serious malfeasance in the small circle who are there. No. Well, remember that the one who this

didn't work with was Marjorie Taylor Greene, and she's out there with a massive, massive online

following. And in the beginning hours of the Iran invasion, she was hammering the administration

on it, which that's kind of what they're paying attention to. If you're getting online flak

from within your own movement, that's like the worst-case scenario for them. So they don't want,

you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene reaching out to Nome and saying, man, they cast the women

aside on this team. Don't they? Why don't you, you know, sort of come with me? They want to prevent

that. All right. And now just finally, you know, the first domino has fallen. Are we going to see,

I mean, there's five, six people who I think wouldn't have lasted in a different administration,

maybe including Trump, one point no, but Hegseth, Kennedy, Patel, you know, possibly others. Do we

think it's a one-shot deal? Or are you looking at this point for more firings? Well, you know,

you're fired as Trump's trademark. You think there would be more, but he also doesn't like to

look like somebody forced his hand. So he doesn't like to fire people under public pressure.

You know, Patel could be, you could make the argument that he's somebody who's caused some

problems. But because this is such a Trump centric administration, it's all about him.

There is no national security council. There is no process. There's pretty much as he puts it

himself, my feeling or my opinion. So I don't know if we're going to see a lot of firings. It's all

about Trump. I think the Democrats want to impeach some of these characters next year. They're not

going to go after Trump for a third time, but they're likely to try to impeach and then put them on,

you know, put Pam Bondi on trial in the Senate. I think she's a name that would figure high

on the betting board. They are doing so many controversial things and she's the face of it. And

reportedly, the White House has no love lost for her. So that would be a big one, really big one.

Okay, final thoughts about the kind of state of the cabinet. What happens now that we've seen

the first break in the dam? You know, the one name that we haven't mentioned so far,

it starts with an E, you know, and we will be back to Epstein. And a lot of this, pretty much

everything that Trump does, you have to see through an Epstein window. And it's an overton

window too, you know. And there's a lot of shoes to drop in that case. There's an important Miami

herald piece about this minor who accuses Trump and Epstein of rape. And some more documents are

coming out. Some haven't been released of the FBI interviews of this young woman. It's hard

to believe that just because she committed some crimes when she was a very young person that

that would discredit her entire story on its face, which is what the White House's position is

right now. So we're not done with Epstein. It, to me, Epstein is, is herpes. Just keeps coming back.

I very much agree and Connor might agree here. It's also when you have a, you know, anyone come in

and tell us anything, you do get a lot of not credible allegations. But just that the, the DOJ had

to today release oops. Here's three new FBI 302s. We thought they were duplicates. They happened

to be the one with exactly these allegations about Trump. So they themselves, I think having

sure the perpetuation that, that herpes will come back around. We just have a minute for our five

words or fewer feature. So I want to go the oral argument in the Supreme Court last week. And

there was a lot of discussion about the drinking habits of the founding fathers. This for the

testing of a law that says people who use drugs can have guns. So we were instructed that John

Adams took a flag and avail every day with breakfast. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of

whiskey every day. So the question for our solid answer in five words or fewer founders were

alive today. What would they be drinking with their breakfast? Well, I think the founders would

be very health conscious. And maybe they'd have non-alcoholic drinks with their breakfast. So my five

words are a nice big healthy smoothie. Here you go. You're Bermotte. Oh, John's counting. Okay,

I just want to make sure it was five words. So under Trump, they'd drink arsenic.

They'd be so appalled at what this man was doing to the Constitution that they would go the way of

Kato, you know, and various other figures from the ancient world and commit suicide.

There you have it. Yeah, I was kind of going in the same direction. I didn't go all the way to

suicide, but I was going to say hard stuff out of disappointment because I just think that they

would be so disappointed with what has become of their original intentions that they would have to

drink even more than they did apparently back then. There you have it. And I'm taking on the same

spectrum as also a middle ground cold brew and constitutional anxiety. Thank you so much, Jonathan,

Connor and Mara. And thank you very much listeners for tuning in to Talking Feds.

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