“Few good options to end the war in Iran”

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Hi everyone, it's four o'clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace.

Day 27 of the war with Iran and here's where things stand. Rising fuel prices have forced

the US Postal Service to impose an 8% surcharge on all of your packages. An inflation is now

expected to top 4%, that's according to one estimate. As for Donald Trump, he faces no good

options to end the war he started growing frustration among the American public over the economic

pain his war is causing. Brand new reporting from the Wall Street Journal reveals that quote,

nearly one month into the war the president has privately informed advisors, he thinks the conflict

is in its final stages. Urging them to stick to the four to six week timeline he's outlined

publicly. At the White House today Donald Trump denied the reporting and said he is, quote,

the opposite of desperate. But it is becoming increasingly clear that he has few good options.

The Iranian regime has rejected a US peace proposal. There are no active negotiations between

the United States and Iran at this moment. Two US officials and two sources with knowledge tell Axios

the Pentagon is plotting a quote, final blow that would involve boots on the ground.

Among the options Trump could choose from. Season Carc Island, where most of Iran's oil is exported

from, capturing Iranian territory to allow for safe passage through the straight of her moves,

or blocking ships that are exporting Iran's oil. Many of these possibilities involve boots

on the ground. And Axios warns that quote, many of the scenarios under discussion would risk

prolonging and intensifying the fight rather than bringing it to a dramatic conclusion.

And that is something Trump does not want to do. US officials tell the Wall Street Journal that

quote, Trump is willing to order US troops on Iranian soil but is reluctant to do so in part

because it could upend his goal of a speedier end to the conflict. He is concerned that the number

of US troops killed or injured in the operation could rise if the war continues.

President being confronted with his limited options for an off-ramp, none leading to his

original stated goal of regime change. And his war of choice with Iran is where we begin today.

Washington Post reporter John Hudson is here. He covers the State Department and National Security.

Also with us, Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling, he served as the commanding general of the US

Army in Europe. And former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is here. She led the US

negotiating team that reached an agreement on the Iran nuclear deal back in 2015. General

Hurtling, how sobering that reporting from Axios about the options that the Pentagon is laying

before the President, you are taking on the options that are being floated.

Yeah, it's troubling. Alicia, we've talked about this before but we're talking about different

courses of actions to bring a political solution to this and you're not going to do that with troops

on the ground. I don't think. You've got various courses of actions and one of the things we've

discussed in the past is something called the troop to task ratio. You know, when there's all

different kinds of potential task for a military organization to accomplish, they're spread very thin.

We currently have two marine expeditionary units and one airborne brigade with an airborne

headquarters going into the region. That's 10,000 forces. That seems like a lot but when you

talking about the size of the country of Iraq or excuse me of Iran and the potential that they

have to defend themselves with air defense equipment, drone strikes, explosively formed penetrators

like they used in such great numbers in Iraq. When I was there, they are not going to sit still

and just wait for the U.S. forces to invade. They're going to defend their country because this

is an existential threat for Iran. They know that there are dangers lurking and they're defending

their sovereign territory. It doesn't matter what we think in terms of whether or not

they have a bad regime or the IOTO is a bad human being and they're oppressing their people.

They still have a desire with the Revolutionary Guard Corps to defend what they see as sovereign

territory. General Hurtling, I'm reminded of what Trump's own former defense secretary,

Jim Mattis, said just this week about the way Trump is handling the war.

Targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy and when I listen to this reporting,

I'm hearing a lot of tactics. I am not at least in my interpretation of what I am reading,

seeing a strategy come together. So if each of these tactics is specifically aimed at opening

the straight of our moves, then theoretically that then assuming it were successful allows ships

carrying oil to get through, then what? What happens then?

That's what we've been talking about, Lisa. Since the very start of this war,

if you don't have an end state, the means that you use the military to conduct along with the

ways you're using them to conduct those means, it doesn't fit together. We're seeing battles,

kinetic strikes, the potential use of military forces, whether it be a marine unit or an army unit.

But again, what are you trying to achieve? Now it seems it's an economic purpose. Open the

straights of our moves, trying to get the markets back. I'm not so sure that's the best way to

use military forces. Unless you have a political end state, you're going to waste a lot of lives.

And I think that that was apparent in your opening statement and what you're going to see in terms

of forces going into combat on the ground are going to face much more difficulties than you see

when you have airplanes and tomahawk missiles bombing from 30,000 or 10,000 feet. It's just a different

ballgame. You're seeing the force involve itself in human interactions on the ground in tough terrain,

in geography that is very different than anything we've faced recently, trying to establish a waterway

to get ships out. If that's the purpose, if that is the political end state, you're going to need a

whole lot more troops to conduct that task. So Wendy, I want you to help me connect the dots

between that military analysis and the diplomatic analysis. You have Axios reporting inside the

administration. Their folks who think the show force would increase their leverage against Iran.

When you are talking about diplomacy, do you buy that? Well, look, I think we always need a

credible threat of force in any negotiation of this nature. However, as General Hurtling knows,

the straight-of-form moves was open before the war. So the closure of the straight is a consequence

of the war, not a cause of it. And indeed, the president and Steve Whitkopf today talked about

putting in front of Iran a 15-point plan, which Iran says is impossible. And in fact, the gap

is enormous. And Pakistan, the country that ostensibly has been trying to mediate sending messages

back and forth today, it appears that the Pakistani embassy in Tehran and the Pakistani ambassador's

residents got hit by a missile, whether it was ours or Israel's or something else. But nonetheless,

there are unintended consequences of this kind of war, where, as the General has said,

the tactics may be good, the battles may go well. Our military is excellent, but there is no

strategy. And indeed, all we have accomplished here, painfully, besides the death of Americans and

the death of so many civilians in the region, including in Iran, is that we now have a more radical,

as I call them, the hard-hard liners. The IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is now in

charge. And because there have been two instances where we have been negotiating with Iran, only to attack

them. Your Onions are not going to be in a rush to believe that they can get a deal that meets

their national interest just because we want it. Well, when the in light of that analysis, you have

the journal reporting that some people close to Trump are urging him to go harder, saying regime

change in Iran could be legacy-defining. Are they in La La Land? Because I'm not understanding any of

this to be bringing us closer to that goal. Well, there has been a segment of our population and

our political class who have believed for a long time that the regime should be ended and we

should do it by force. But that is going to take a lot of troops that is going to take boots on

the ground. I know that some are suggesting that the president say, here's our proposal. If the

folks who are in charge don't agree, well, let's decapitate them and get to the next level until we

find some folks who will agree. But all we have done as a result of these tactics is to increase

the nationalization of it, the nationalism in Iran. This is a country with a great history of

pride and resilience and resistance. And all we have done, I believe, is increase their resistance.

They have asymmetric tactics they can use as the general has mentioned. They are not going to

give up easily. They are not going to capitulate just because we want them to. And as the general

said, none of us likes this regime. All of us want the people of Iran to have freedom. And of course,

none of us want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That's something we've worked for for a long,

long time. These tactics aren't getting us there. John, I'm so struck with the we all I think

understand what this means for the region, what it means for us here at home. You now have

entering into that calculus, this new reporting from the Washington Post about how the war is affecting

the US position on Ukraine. Quote, the Pentagon is considering whether to divert weapons intended

for Ukraine to the Middle East as the war in Iran depletes some of the US military's most

critical munitions. The weapons that could be diverted away from Ukraine include air defense

and sector missiles ordered through a NATO program launched last year in which partner countries

buy US arms for Kiev. So a few questions there, John, fair to say that that is a sign that the

military is strained. What does it mean for Ukraine if those munitions are rerouted? And what is

it tell you about the priority of this administration if that is how they choose to use America's resources

and America's might? It's absolutely fair to say that these that there's a strained resources

right now. I mean, look, the United States is involved in a lot of conflicts around the world

and there are real trade-offs when you end up using the huge amount of munitions that this war

in Iran absolutely devours in a very short amount of time. The first casualty, of course,

could be the Ukrainians. This report, which was put forward by my colleague Noah Robertson

and Alan Francis, it's very significant to given the fact that one of the key munitions that they

are considering moving to the Middle East is interceptors. These interceptors are life and death

when it comes to a lot of Ukrainians, they're constantly trying to shoot Russian missiles out of

the sky that are headed towards civilian areas. This is a massive trade-off and in the big picture,

you have to look at how the United States is involved in so many conflicts around the world right

now. You've got Ukraine, you've got Iran, you have Venezuela where we just very recently removed

Maduro and then you have the Trump administration openly considering regime change in Cuba right now.

These are things that potentially require vast amount of munitions and the cupboard is becoming

increasingly bare when it comes to our ability to do that. Of course, I didn't even mention China

right now where munitions for a potential defense of Taiwan is something that military planners have

been thinking about a lot lately. So there's real trade-offs and the idea that this conflict in Iran

is something that the United States can do without any consequences is not true in any way.

John Hurtley, and generally, I want you to pick up on everything that we just heard from John Hudson

there, what it means for leaders of the military to go and to use John Words find the cupboard

but also talk about the fact that this war, the Donald Trump chose to start with Iran,

is now acting as a gift to Russia.

Yeah, first I'll just say that in terms of the the sustainment of this fight,

there's a critical element of strategy that says if you forget logistics, you're going to lose.

We're forgetting logistics. We think we can cover all these different grounds. When I was a war

planner on the joint staff a long, long time ago, when we invaded Iraq, there was a requirement by

the chairman of the joint chiefs to determine where are we taking risk in other parts of the world.

I'm not sure that kind of assessment has been done today because as John just said, we're spreading

ourselves very thin, very thin. And the other thing I'd say is we're taking the place of what Russia

is doing inside of Ukraine. We're considering bombing different locations that are going to affect

citizens and civilians in a country. We are, I mean, even the president is naming it a special

military operations. He's saying it's not a war. It's a military operation. I got to tell you,

let me be pathetic when I say this. We are in a war. We are in multiple wars. And we do have to

consider the risk associated with other places that we're leaving uncovered. The last thing I'd say,

Alicia, is I once heard a great mentor of mine told me when I was going into the surge in Iraq in

2007. He said, we can't kill our way out of this. That would be good advice for the president to

understand that you can't kill your way out of this problem. There's got to be different elements

of national power applied. Policies, politics, diplomatic. And truthfully, in seeing what's been

reported, the stance of both the United States and Iran in terms of the peace treaty that we're

looking to sign or the cessation of hostilities, they seem as far apart as the Russian-Ukrainian

cessation of activities. What they still have, both see it very different ways. And truthfully,

like I've said before, Alicia, I think the best condition we can get out of this particular conflict

is a draw. There is no win-win. There's no win-lose. There's going to be a draw. And we have to work

a whole lot more beyond just the military use of power. John, based on your reporting, are there

intermediaries, are there advisors to the president that are making that argument to him that a draw

is about the best they're going to get here? Absolutely. And the most prominent being conservative

commentator Tucker Carlson, who made several visits to the White House ahead of this conflict.

Unfortunately, as we've seen things play out, and unfortunately in his case, the president has

been very defensive when it comes to criticisms of the way that he's handling this, including from

allies, such as Carlson. One of the critics of this conflict who are in the conservative

foreign policy restraint community have been moaned recently is that the polling that the president

is seeing about this conflict. He's being shown the views of Republican voters who have largely

supported this conflict and have a favorable view of it. But the president is not seeing as much

polling from independence and from Democrats. Independence, of course, being key to his coalition.

And this is where this conflict is very unpopular. And so many people in the kids corner who want

to see this end are saying, claim the victory. Just recite the statistics about all of the

military infrastructure that has been destroyed by the United States and pull out as soon as possible.

But he's getting pushed in a separate direction from a lot of pro-Israel and Israeli voices in his

circle that have said go harder, go deeper, continue to the very end. And that's where the central

tension is. And you're seeing it play out in real time in that cabinet meeting you mentioned where

the president is trying to deny that he is in the squeeze that we all really see that he's in.

Well, Wendy, as we are on air, we are learning that the president has said he is pausing strikes on

energy plans until Monday, April 6. That is two weeks. What does that tell you about the

conversations that they're having inside this administration? And what does it mean

for the possibility of the likelihood of a diplomatic negotiation?

Well, the president originally said that Friday of this week was the deadline, his five days.

He's now extended that to April 6. I saw General Hurtling, I saw Mark shake his head

because I think he feels as I do that that probably increases the likelihood of boots on the ground

and an effort to somehow apply some kind of military leverage on this situation. That is not

going to solve this problem. That is not even if you take Carg Island, you need many more troops

to hold it over time. If you try to open the straight up for moves, I don't know how you do that

without lots of death. And I don't know how you do that over a long period of time without

many more troops and many more assets as Mark pointed out. And so this announcement,

which I wish was about diplomacy that was taking hold. And I hope I'm proved wrong. And somehow

there's some back room diplomacy. That would be fantastic. But I agree. Any diplomacy, as John

Hudson has said, the sides are very far apart. It will be a draw on the end. The Trump administration

will have to go back to the drawing board. Yes, we will have pushed back their missile program.

We will have pushed back their navy. We will have made it a weaker regime in some ways,

but a more hard line regime. But we will not have solved the existential problems because you cannot

bomb away knowledge. They will still have control of the port of the straight up for moves. They will

still have control of their stockpile of enriched uranium, even if it's buried underground.

And they will still have their ability to move forward to build a nuclear weapon, which this more

hard line regime will likely believe it's necessary to have a deterrent against further and future

attacks. So it makes me pretty darn nervous. I hope I'm wrong. General Hartling, I have to

sneak in a break here, but I do want to ask you before we go. If you agree with that analysis,

if the extension of the deadline says to you there's increased likelihood of boots on the ground here.

I'm not sure I do just yet, Alicia, but I would like to comment on what Wendy just said about

the nuclear aspect of this. There are going to be other nation states. They're already are

who are going to say to themselves in order not to be intimidated or blackmailed. They need

nuclear weapons. So we're going to see not a non-polification of nuclear weapons. We're

going to have the potential of proliferation because of this kind of intimidation and the threats

to other nations. I don't want to say that there is a greater potential for military actions,

but extending it two weeks, first of all, the two-week deadline that the president always throws

out there to extend what he might do is something that we're all used to. But secondly,

what we've all been saying is the amount of forces that are in the region right now just

are not enough to do the kinds of things that the administration is considering. So it needs

additional buildup. Two weeks isn't going to give you that. You're going to get some additional

ground forces, potentially there, more brigades from the 82nd Airborne Division, but those kind of

light forces, the mues from the Marines, the 82nd from the Army, they are not going to be able to

control as one of you just, the areas that we're talking about wanting to control to get the

streets of our mues opening. And there's going to be a lot of family members saying,

what are my soldiers and Marines doing over there? And why are they risking their lives to do it?

They deserve to ask those questions. John Hudson, Mark Hartling, Ambassador Wendy Sherman,

thank you all so much for being with us. When we come back more and more Republicans are saying

they aren't sure the U.S. is in Iran for the right reasons. How Trump's war strategy is now

frustrating some of his allies on the hill. Plus, Americans have felt the effects of this war

every time they fill up at the pump. Now they're also going to be feeling the war's costs when

they ship a package. And later in the show, even while busy waging a war of choice in the Middle East,

Trump has managed to keep up his campaign of political retribution here at home,

bending the Department of Justice to try and prosecute his so-called political enemies.

We're going to get to all of that more when deadline went house continues after this.

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Whether or not Abraham Lincoln ever actually said the phrase so often attributed to him as the

subject of some debate, but it's an effective phrase all the same. That you quote,

can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can

not fool all of the people all of the time. Just look around. The New York Times has extensive

new reporting this afternoon that indicates Republicans in Congress, even the ones who've so far

given the White House wide latitude on the issue are growing more anxious about the Trump

administration's handling of the war in Iran, specifically having to do with those two big question

marks. Ground troops and tax dollars quote, several GOP lawmakers emerged on Wednesday from

classified briefings with Pentagon officials on Capitol Hill complaining that they had not received

crucial details about the way forward. Meanwhile, as Americans looking to travel this spring season,

choose between hours long lines at the airport and sky high gas prices, the administration's

general dysfunction is seeping into the discourse formerly Trump friendly media spaces.

Here is one such podcaster, Tim Dillon.

But this is a geopolitical nightmare now. It's an economic catastrophe. And the people these like

dumb, you know, you know, maybe well-meaning, maybe not. People that are trying to justify this

as anything other than a strategic blunder are all being exposed as like chills.

This is not the way an empire projects power. This is how they fall. This is how they spin out

where you have people without any justification running around talking about how well we're doing,

gaslighting the public. Our government is completely dysfunctional. And everybody knows it.

And most of the people know it. Most of the people know what he said that lines up pretty well

with the latest survey from Fox News. And it's a shock. Donald Trump's approval now sits at an

all-time low, at least for that poll, 41%. And what's more, 16% of Republicans now say that they

disapprove. That's an all-time high. Joining me at the table is Bloomberg News anchor and correspondent

David Gura. Also with us, host of the Fast Politics podcast and a New York Times contributing

opinion writer Molly Zhang fast. Democratic strategist and political analyst Basil

Michael. Does this moment feel different to you? It does. It does because there are so many

things going on at the same time. And it appears that the president and this administration are out

of their depths. I think what are the first of all, I'm stuck on the fact that he talked about empire.

This is not what empires do. Actually, in some ways, this is exactly what empires do is they go

after anyone they think they can conquer, try to absorb those states, those people into their

fold. People were talking about this with respect to Venezuela. He's been talking about Cuba.

That changes the framework of what happens geopolitically in the Caribbean. And now we're in,

we're in Iran. But but you get the sense that the administration does not know what they're doing

and that there is no actual off-ramp. And when you fold that into the fact that just living a normal

life in this country is starting to become really expensive. Well, it's always been really expensive.

Now it is becoming even more expensive. Yes, I'll correct myself. It's more expensive,

including the now surcharge at the postal service, right? So there is so there is sufficient

anger. I do think that a lot of the according to the polling that a lot of his court constituents

starting to he's starting to lose that because he is not FDR and here's why I raised that comparison

because the country prior to World War II, we were isolationist and FDR recognizing that

eventually the United States would have to get involved, found a way to work with Congress

and to bring the country with him in his thinking and moving the economy and the sort of national

spirit to get to a place where we could say as a country, this is important for us. Donald Trump

doesn't have that bone in his body. And he's starting from a much lower point in terms of approval

rating so that he is incapable of getting the country to a place where we'll say this was the

right thing to do because he hasn't sold us on the why, why this is important. What does it do to

the country to benefit its voters? And so I can absolutely, this was all predictable because it's

a point. As a nerd raising future nerds, I was recently took them to Hyde Park to learn about FDR

and I said to one of the people who worked there, what's your favorite exhibit? And they said,

go around the corner, it's a list of everything they did during FDR's first year in office,

and part of it is in addition to that role on the global stage, there were so many things they

were delivering domestically here at home that made people feel like their lives were going to be

more livable and not the American dream, whatever that meant at the time was more within reach.

Neither of those things are happening right now. You don't have a Congress led by Republicans that

is delivering on those domestic agenda questions. And instead what you have is these entanglements

with the president campaigns on never getting involved in being front and center. And lawmakers

are starting to get frustrated. I thought this was reporting, this reporting was interesting from

the New York Times. In classified briefings for lawmakers in both chambers on Wednesday,

Pentagon officials declined to outline when or how U.S. ground forces might be used in Iran,

according to two people familiar with the sessions who spoke about them on the condition of anonymity.

During the closed-door session with senators, according to another person familiar with it,

who requested anonymity to describe it in general terms, the Republican senators Mitch McConnell,

Jerry Moran and Lisa Murkowski complained about how limited the information was,

including requests for details on the cost of the military campaign.

Even if they won't say it in public, the fact that privately they are deeply frustrated about the

lack of transparency from this administration and administration that claims to be the most

transparent administration in history means that they understand the human cost of this,

the cost that people are paying at the pump, but also just the absolute political catastrophe

that this is likely to be for them. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And look, we have a,

I think it's really important to realize like we were never given a reason why this was started,

right? A lot of reasons. Well, but the White House never, right, there's, we've heard Marco Rubio

Israel, we've heard, you know, Saudi Arabia. I mean, there's certainly a lot of theories,

but the White House has been unable to articulate why they did this. And so they are unable to articulate

what winning would look like, because you don't understand why it started. And so this ends up

already, and remember, this is Donald Trump, who has run on two, basically two things,

making things cheaper, which this does not do because of the straights of Hormuz and the oil

and gas crisis now. And the numbers, I mean, that icy pictures of gas station numbers,

and I'm like, whoa, and then on ending wars, right? No more foreign wars. That was his thing. And so,

and he's just had a plethora of foreign wars. And he almost postures like he's looking for more,

like the whole Greenland thing. So I do think that this is just very hard. Now you have to sell,

I got elected on two things, and I have been doing absolutely opposite for the last two years

in the midterms. And I think, you know, part of it is they're scared to go against Trump,

but more and more what you're seeing is these politicians making the calculus that as scary as it

is to go against Trump, they are going to have to try to get reelected. They're going to take

that albatross right around their neck into the midterms. All right, the panel is sticking with me.

I'm going to get David Toway, and on the other side, I'm going to sneak in a quick break. We're going to be right back.

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Because I voted for Trump last time, I'm deeply disappointed in his administration.

Good, correct. And it just feels like, what's that?

Sorry, sorry.

But it's just like, I just feel like there's nobody to vote for ever.

And it's not like I would go back and change it, because I don't like it. I don't think it even

matters. Yeah, that's why I don't like what Trump is doing right now, but you can't say that,

because then they're like, see, told you, it's like, well, I find your alternative unfathomable.

And the other thing, I feel like all the things that Trump ran on that I liked, he has done

the opposite. It's done like being sacked up. So I'm like, I didn't, I voted for you, but not for

this. And so it's just like, you can't trust anyone.

Wow, I could write a dissertation on that exchange, David Gura, Molly Jean-Casse,

and Vazel Smichler back with us. All right, so the podcast world that has generally been

sympathetic to Trump, I mean, it seems actually like a pretty honest articulation of the moment

we find ourselves in. Yeah, I think so. You have a person who's really fixated on this response

mechanism of the stock market and the oil market. I think that's giving him some solace on some days

and certainly worrying him on others. I think the more interesting metric is gas prices, which

are only going in one direction. And so I venture to guess those podcasters like the rest of us

are seeing that upward trajectory in those and really feeling quite bad about the way things

are headed. And I talked at General James Tavritas today from our NATO Supreme Allied Commandery.

So there are two clocks right now. There's the clock that's ticking in Washington having to do with

yes oil prices. And the fact the midterms are approaching and then there's the clock in the

Middle East where things are wildly out of control. The war is widening and there's a real difficulty

in getting that oil out of the region to the world. And so yes, the midterms are close.

What's closer is a circumstance in which there really is going to be a drought of oil in a lot

of places and it's going to be really compounding probably. And you talk about the way that senators

respond to this Todd Young, the Republican Senator, was on Bloomberg today. And he couldn't say

what these two marine expeditionary units are going to do in the Middle East or what the 82nd

Airborne is going to do. So there's a basic level of articulation of mission and strategy that

clearly isn't coming across to lawmakers right now. And I think of something that we say about

my son often he's precise but not accurate. And I think that's kind of the tell when you listen

to this administration. So the president just a few moments ago tweeting out that he's going to

pause the period of energy plant destruction 10 days until 8 p.m. on April the 6th. There's a

level of precision that doesn't last, doesn't stick and continues to move. And I just see a lot

of similarity there between what I often see in my child and the president of that.

It's black for your kid. I'm so struck by something that was woven into that sound that we heard

one that the alternative was a nonstarter. But also if part of what Donald Trump did to American

democracy was to engage low propensity voters or folks who had sort of written off politics as not

being for them. It is not that the positive outcome is that those folks choose to go back to

not being involved, right? Like I am alarmed by the fact that the answer is not a re-engagement,

a questioning of why this vote choice was not necessarily for them the right vote choice

and a real interest in alternatives, but rather a dismissal of the system altogether.

Yeah. I mean in addition to all of the active steps they're taking to undermine democracy,

whether it's the SAV Act or their redistricting effort, to not have delivered and to basically say

we said we're going to drain the swamp instead we're filling it up. That's also bad for American

democracy. It is and you know it's interesting because what I took from that conversation

the gentleman said I voted for him but not this and I just I was thinking about my hip hop days

I was thinking about black sheep is like you could get with this or you could get with that

and you know what you vote for this you will get that. And we we said a lot about Donald Trump

what the administration promised it was written in project 2025 so it was all laid out.

So why did people do it anyway because they thought that their adjacency would help them. They

thought that being close to people in power to even liken themselves to what they saw would

actually be helpful to them. And yes there's a certain education that needs to take place to say

well elections matter and this is why it matters these are all the people that president appoints

and most people are not going to pay attention to that. However it is important for as a person

talked about alternatives that if you are presenting on attorney if you are a Democrat right now

that you have to do something similar to what Donald Trump did which was paint a world you want

the voter to live in and attach a motion to it. Policies are important but you also have to

attach the emotion to the policy and that's what Donald Trump did. He said I'm going to I'm you

may not be a billionaire but I'm going to make you feel like the billionaire is in you is within

your reach. I probably said a bit of an idiot but the billionaire in you is within your reach

and I'm not saying that Democrats need to promise that exactly but they need to they need to

create the world that the next voter wants to live in. So that I think in addition to let's just

vote against everything that's happening right now and just one thing very quickly because I went

up to we went to Cornell I went up to Cornell the other day and I always take notice of what I see

it's a rule they're largely rural communities that you pass between here and there. A lot of the

businesses I saw six months ago a year ago are closed and so when you think about the rising

costs the surcharge with the postal service all of these small businesses are going away. So when

people say well we didn't vote we the alternative was just as bad no it was not it never was and we

need to get over this comp of you know I want my perfect choice as opposed I want to just live a

better life and vote for the person that's actually creating that world as I said that seems

that's better for you let me pull a strand of that can you can you wait till after commercial

right to pull the strand because I'm already in trouble all right everybody's saying we're going

to be right back stay with us. We're back with David girl Molly Jean fast and Basil

Michael right so a gallon of diesel has reached five dollars and 30 cents a gallon that's a 51

percent from this time last year you've got the post office saying they're going to implement an

eight percent surcharge how does that affect not just individuals but businesses that were already

reeling from this president's tariff. It's such a good point that was the threat I was going to

pull which is you've had businesses kind of wondering how all of these trade policies are going to

affect them some have closed already they've had to navigate all of this they kind of felt like

they might be on the other side of this the things had calmed down when it comes to trade policy

a little bit we've seen more deals negotiated the Europeans voting to advance one this week

and now they face this just another layer of uncertainty and I think it's going to be a huge

problem and you've brought up the the surcharge on usps you as well there are all these second and

third order effects so yes it is a huge pain and a difficulty for gas and diesel to be as expensive

as they are but that plays its way through the economy very quickly becomes more expensive to ship

things around the country to make products all of this stuff is going to percolate and cause a

more acute effect on people in this country and around the world as all of this progresses and

that is very much what's animating I think the anxiety within the White House how do you contain

this and yet they have been unable to do it and we've seen so many ideas floated by the Treasury

Department and the White House if that's re-insurance if it's escorts through the Strait of Hormuz

there was this gift that the president talked about which evidently was not a wooden horse but

talking about empire but was the allowance of some ships through that that channel none of this

has made a real noisional difference yes the price continues to vacillate but it's 40% higher than

it was at the start of this conflict and so it lays out in very stark terms I think for everyone

when they fill up their cars with gas just how radically the world has changed since the president

gave the state of the union was trumpeting the fact that gas prices rose low as they were right easy

for presidents to bring gas prices up really really hard for them to bring them down meanwhile

CPAC is going on without the president yes we were just talking about this because I started I used

to go to CPAC and write about it and what I found very interesting was you would see them workshop

certain culture war issues like hamburgers there was one year they were talking about the green

new deal and that you'll see wants to take away your hamburgers and I remember sitting there

thinking well that is an insane thing to say and then you just heard it again and again and again

and a lot of Trump speeches so you do get to see some of the culture war ideas that they are

going to try and workshop and that's interesting I think it's also I think it's interesting

these will be the way in which the infrastructure on the right has changed so much in recent years

and who has power and who is seen as being an arbiter of ideas and who has the president's ear

has shifted so radically shifted on the left too quite frankly and I think that one of the things

I was talking to a friend of mine about earlier is I'm seeing in my algorithms a lot more

explainers and that's actually quite interesting and valuable because if and this goes back to

the to the podcast folks earlier you want to know what's happening and how you're being how

your vote in your your sort of understanding of the world is being undermined especially when it

comes to who's getting rich off of everything that's happening right now and that to be honest even

if you're if you're on the right and you are concerned about what's happening the decisions

that the president's made by the way you're not that far off from the things that AOC and Bernie

Sanders were saying right because they were making the point and have been for a long time

that the system is rigged against you and the mayor does a great job of that does he does I don't

know why you hate him or his all right David girl Holly Zhang passed vassals to Michael thank you all

so much for spending some time with us a quick break for us new reporting on just how far

reaching the harassment of ICE agents got during the surge in Minneapolis this year stay with us

as Donald Trump ramps up the role of ICE deploying them to airports all across this country

Minnesota lawmakers are warning about the potential for abuse the Minnesota Star Tribune reporting

that lawmakers are speaking out about being targeted and harassed by ICE agents during operation

Metro search the Star Tribune writing this quote during a Senate hearing in February on a bill

to require federal agents to unmask state senator Lindsey Port said agents had followed her parked

outside her home on the lawmakers told colleagues the federal agents world misogynistic epithets at her

even after she informed them she was an elected official another legislator said an agent with

whom she had never interacted greeted her by first name while another said agents walked around her

home taking photos the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Star Tribune's

request for comment week are going to stay on that story after break Trump escalating the rhetoric

and the threats against judges trying to uphold the rule of law we're going to look at what is being

done about it when deadline one has continued after this snoring gasping during sleep feeling

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