"Infighting among card-carrying MAGA figures”

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And I'm afraid that the military right now is a little bit out of control.

It seems to be feeding on its own successes of killing the enemy without losing too many troops.

How long can this go on? My friends, listen to me. We all have to start pressuring this

administration to call it a success and end this before it gets much worse. That's my opinion.

I think we cannot afford a wider war. The world can't afford a wider war. And I will tell you

right now if the midterm elections will held today will be all over for their public and party.

Hi again everybody. It's now 5 o'clock in New York this afternoon. The crack up deep inside

the MAGA coalition is coming to resemble the movement itself. Crass, blunt, vindictive and notably

historically unprecedented since Donald Trump arrived on the scene. Never in the history of Donald

Trump's political rule had the American people observe such public infighting among prominent media

savvy, card-carrying MAGA figures quite like what's happening right now since Trump began the war

with Iran. People who have been with him in lockstep since the release of the access Hollywood

tape all the way through the botched release of the Epstein files and the millions of controversies

and offenses in between. People who rallied to his side in the aftermath of the deadly

insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. We noted in the last hour Joe Kent,

Donald Trump's director of the National Counterterrorism Center, whose resume includes defending

January 6th insurrectionists as, quote, political prisoners and refusing to rescind claims that

federal agents were responsible for instigating that attack. That fella resigned this morning from

his post, insisting that he could not, quote, in good conscience, support the ongoing war with Iran.

He wrote this, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started

this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. But that is only scratching

the surface of a broader, more bitter conflict that is raging right now. The New York Times today

detailed the now vulgar R-slash X-rated high-profile feud between right-wing personality Megan Kelly

and Fox News host Mark Levin. Kelly opposes the war. Levin supports it. Quote, Ms. Kelly herself,

a former Fox News host recently argued that the war was sold to the American people by Israel

firsters like Mark Levin. He called her an emotionally unhinged, lured and petulant wreck.

They got uglier from there between these two. We'll spare you some of the granular details of

their back and forth, along with what parts of the human anatomy found their way into their online

insults for one another. But again, the MAGA war goes deeper. We started the hour with the most

family-friendly bit we could show you here. They have MAGA descent from Newsmax host, that was

Michael Savage, who insists, quote, we should be screaming from the rooftops for peace and,

quote, then there's right-wing podcaster Tim Dillon, whose opinions include this.

Here is Pete Hegseth, who is a drunk and a failure, making a big mess in this war killing

children in Iran a truly contemptible figure who should resign or criminal Pete Hegseth,

friend of the show. But he really should resign. They are massacring children in Iran. It is

disgusting. They are massacring children in Iran. It is disgusting. Slash, friend of the show.

18 days now into Donald Trump's war with Iran and the massive cracks and gaping holes in his

coalition are deepening by the hour. It is where we start the hour with me for the hour.

Political analyst host of the War Work Podcast, Tim Miller, is back. Also joining us,

President of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carosone. Here at the table, Puck News,

Senior Political Columnist, National Affairs, Analyst John Halman, who notably descended when

I said, R-rated. Maybe not R-rated. I was thinking of something else that I'd seen online,

but the Megan Kelly Mark Levin fight is probably like P-G-13.

Listen, you on this show, I believe yesterday, had a discussion of bullsemen. If Tim was here,

it wasn't his fault though. Now I feel like everyone's going to go to the internet,

Megan Kelly. Micropenus. She calls Mark Levin. Micropenus Mark. I just, we should be...

We should platform the fight. We should not, here at a serious level, we should not. We didn't

use the word they did about each other. This is a story about their hot war.

Yes. I mean, this is the story is about much more than their hot war. There's a bunch of ways

to analyze this, but there's no question, and again, to go back to something you were talking

about on the show yesterday, and that didn't have anything to do with bull ejaculate,

was this thing of the fact that there's this rise? Please blame SNL for that word.

That was their mahasket. If you wish. Tim wanted to dwell on it though yesterday for a little

while, so I feel like I should dwell on it too. It's that there's in this... The thing that I

raised yesterday was the fact that there is this rising tide among young people in Maga,

about that is openly embracing Elf Hitler, the strain of anti-Semitism that runs through the

right now, and that dominates a portion of the Maga universe that Tucker Carlson gives very

clear voice to when he brings Nick Fuentes, who is an open Hitler admirer on the show. Nick Fuentes

is as influential as anybody, maybe a little less influential than Tucker, but with younger

Maga people, probably more influential. That piece of the Maga world is on the rise,

and what we are seeing here in this entire story, and a lot of these fights, the undercurrent of it

is about one of the most serious threats to what used to be called conservatism, what used to

be called the Republican Party, and what is now Donald Trump's party is this virulent,

hateful, and increasingly prevalent and deeply entrenched part of that movement. If you read the

entirety of the resignation note, which I won't do, but if you read the entire resignation,

there's not more. He goes on. He keeps going back to Israel and misinformation. Basically,

talking about essentially that Donald Trump and part of his movement have been infiltrated by

people with dual royalties, these are calamities and smears. They may, we don't know exactly what

led to the war in Iran yet, that reporting is yet to be done, but this is not a trivial fight.

This is a thing that is about some of the most base hatreds that have animated national socialism,

fascism, totalitarianism on the right for the past 100 years and maybe longer, and we're seeing

them right now, right at the surface of this debate over what's going on around.

It also, I think, infuses the attacks on the press for their coverage of Iran with an interesting

dimension, Angelo. I mean, the most vicious attacks are coming from the most high profile figures in

MAGA world. Yeah, because as John noted, there's this incredible undercurrent. There is a

cauldron of this sentiment that they're tapping into to grow their audiences. Candace Owens

is one of the fastest growing online personalities right now, and what she basically does time

and again is take the latest news story and somehow connect it back to a thing that she

reports to some kind of Jewish conspiracy. And you're seeing that play out with these talkers.

I mean, when they're tapping into this cauldron, one of the things they're pointing out,

many of them are saying is that this is what Charlie Kirk died for. This is why Charlie Kirk got

killed for his opposition to war with Iran on behalf of Israel by saying that your audience

grows because you're tapping into the same energy that Nick Fuentes taps into when he promotes

corporism. And that you see play out in that Joe Kent resignation is basically just corporism

on fancy letterhead. I mean, he is repeating the very same smears and attacks that you see

perpetuated by these figures. And what is actually happening underneath it is that this is where

the fault lines are being drawn. So it has short term political relevance. So it has a lot of

shadow for it. I love watching them fight. And I can enjoy two things to be true. I can enjoy

them tearing each other apart and what that means in the short term, but also cognizant of what

that means in the meeting of long term. Yeah, it has some political consequences for Trump and

you know, between now and the midterms. But this is actually going to shape the landscape

well after 2026. This same fault line that blew up back in October between Tucker and Nick Fuentes

and the Heritage Foundation that JD Vance weighed in on the side of not engagement,

citing with the corpor saying, sure, they can come to be a part of a movement because he recognized

where the power not just as currently is, but where it's growing. And that's the key indicator

here. That's where the power is growing. And so the two for here is that by making these

attacks, these figures not just get to grow their own appetite, but they get the simultaneous

thing of saying, see, we told you not to trust those journalists, those media figures,

because they're working on behalf of something else, some deeper darker cabal shadowy network of

who owns them, where controls them, or who they're operating on behalf of. And so that's why not

only do you need to come to me to get more truth, but you need to actively reject them. And that's

the same narrative that Trump is pushing every single day in his administration to undermine truth,

to weaken the First Amendment and free speech in his country in journalism, because we're

going to need a lot of that between now and the midterms as he sort of consolidates autocratic

control. And that's the last thing I'll say is a bit of irony here is that they're weakening

the one check that will actually be necessary over the next year as Trump continues to

get his control and consolidate his power. He doesn't care about their support anymore.

Now he's speedrunning to the other end of that. And that's where it sort of has become sort

of a cool joke. They may be showing the seeds of their own demise in all of ours.

Well, let me, I'm sort of going to follow up with you. I mean,

Angela Trump's not on that side where all the heat is and where all the energy is,

and we're doing Trump's on the other side. Trump is against Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly on

this. And he's standing with Mark Levin, who Megan Kelly commented on the size of his anatomy.

Quote, Mark Levin, a truly great American patriot, is somewhat under somewhat. He's totally

under siege by other people with far less intellect, capability, capitalized, and love also

capitalized for our country. Those that speak ill of Mark will quickly fall by the wayside,

as do the people whose ideas, policies, and footings are not sound, they are not mega, I am.

I mean, Donald Trump leaning into making this the throwdown for who is mega and who isn't.

And, and, and Angela, just, you know, the only thing that complicates what you're saying is that

Trump is on the other side of what you just said on the other side is this is going to weaken his

power and his influence. We just haven't seen a political consequence of that yet, right? Because

the Republicans, the ones that could hold them accountable and be a check haven't actually

responded to that political reality yet. And, and there was still early days here, they're still

playing it out. There's so choice choosing between this future threat that maybe they think they

can manage a harness and the current threat, which that Trump has made it very clear that if you

oppose him, he's going to make your life really difficult and miserable. He is on the other side

of this and that's in large part because he is not tapped into the zeitgeist in the way that he

typically is. That's where one of Trump's young people called a super power. It's not super power.

It's just, he's media savvy. And when he was connected to the zeitgeist, he could be a feedback

loop for it. He can pull from it and respond to it and he can feed it. There are parts that he is

doing as a as a backstop and it's because of where he gets information from. And we've talked about

this in the past. I thought it was very telling that one of the things that he did was push a video

on his own account about this is the prophecy come to life. This is the exact thing that Christian

Zionists and Christian nationalists are out there excited and engaged about. And, you know, in the

media circles that he consumes, they're largely thinking it's okay. Newsmax began to turn on him

and I think we'll have to see how this plays out. His power is going to be diminished, but that's

what happens when you get high on your own supply. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's not

worth damaging because he is sort of making this calculus that he can brute force his way through

and then it'll all work out. But part of the reason it all worked out for him is because all these

storytellers that are turning on him would backfill the wild claim that he made and sort of help

make it manifest or reality or prop it up at least for the bastion of supporters that helped

continue to keep the vibes at least tolerable if not good sometimes for his people. The tragedy

and all of this to Miller is that 13 men and women of the military have died, 200 have been injured

and thousands across the Middle East have died. And because Donald Trump has not seen fit to

address the nation and I'm not saying that that's a thing that makes war better and I'm not saying

that everyone believes them and I'm not saying that what's been done in the past is what

is right and this is wrong. But some of what he's experiencing that clearly agitates him these are

his words responding to his coalition civil war is the vacuum that is entirely of his own creation.

What do you make of where this story stands today?

Yeah, look, I think it's headspinning. It's probably headspinning a lot of viewers,

you know, kind of listening to us dissect this because it's like we basically have two factions

fighting and it's one set of conspiracy theorists against enough, right? Like it's essentially pro-war

conspiracy theorists against anti-war conspiracy theorists and at various times each faction will

occasionally touch on something accurate or true. But for the most part, this whole fight

is as performative, right? It's WWE and there's like real-life consequences that are being

experienced as you mentioned about folks that have died or been injured already by this war,

but by everybody, the whole world. That's the craziest part about this. It is people in this country

for whom prices are going up. That's true everywhere. Europe, Asia, you know, gas prices, food prices,

everything is going to be more expensive now. The economy globally is going to get worse

because of this war that there's no clear rationale for. And so you have Joe Kent, the quits today,

and you know, as has been laid out, he's a conspiracy theorist. He mentions in his statement that like,

you know, his real might have been responsible for the Iraq and Syria wars, which is just not true.

But with regards to this war, what he lays out in his statement is basically what the Secretary

of State and the President have said at times, right? Which is that, you know, Israel took us into

this war. And then you have the President responding to his resignation and his spokesperson,

you know, talking about how Iran was an imminent threat to us. Trump said earlier today something

about how if he hadn't done what he had done, we would have been nuked already by now.

I mean, like, this is laughable and obviously ridiculous on its face. And so like into that vacuum,

where you're the President of the United States, like offering nonsensical rationale for this war

that's causing real harm, like more conspiracy theories are going to proliferate.

Yeah. And so, you know, I think that is like, you know, we have this sort of volume of

war and volume of information right now. And there's nobody that can be trusted because you have

an administration that's lying. It's, it's, it's most prominent opponents or people that have a

history of advanced conspiracy theories. And the platforms, a lot of people getting information

are run by folks with an agenda. And there's increasingly a lot of disinformation on there. And so,

I think that's, you know, I think it's a confusing time for people to navigate like what is actually

happening in this war. Yeah. And I mean, just a level set, it matters because Donald Trump wins

because of these people we're talking about. Right. So Donald Trump is propelled to the presidency

for a second time for manipulating people like Joe Rogan, who is the top podcast in the country

most weeks. And Kelly, who's one of the top news podcasts in the country except when Tim Beaser,

Tucker Carlson, who is another one of the top podcasting country, these people all throw in

with Donald Trump. And they are spooning this, this, this, this toxic mix of disinformation and

conspiracy theories is their daily fare. And so, these people matter because gone are the days

when endorsements or normal political things make a difference in an election or issues have

been forbid. These people we're talking about are why Trump wins a second time. And for Tim

Poole, who's one of them to call Hegs at the War criminal, that's not for East past that.

It's not nothing. But I, it's not nothing. And it's important. But I, I just think it kind of

goes back to a slightly earlier part of the conversation, we're talking about that with Angela,

which is like, you said this thing about how Trump's on the other side. Trump is always on the

only on one side, Trump's on Trump's side. So he's done this thing in Iran for whatever reasons.

We, but one of the things we've learned about Donald Trump, he believes in almost nothing.

So the notion that he's aligned with the anti-Semite conspiracy theorist versus the neocon conspiracy

theorist. I just said he issued a statement in support of the person accused of having a small

penis. But well, yes. I mean, there's some so close to saying something that would be

even offensive by my standards. But here's the thing. He, that, he is on the side of the people

who are on his side. Mark Levin is defending him right now. He's under siege. He doesn't care

if he has a micro penis or doesn't have a micro penis. He doesn't care where he stands on

the ideological spectrum and on the right. People who are with him right now, he's going to,

he's going to be on their side because they are, they are on his side. And I will say that the

one thing to temper this entire discussion, I, you know, I think that the cultural influencers,

the podcasters, that this is an incredibly important part of creating the kind of myasma,

the political myasma that has, has given sustenance to and buoyancy to Trumpism for a long time.

It is still the case that all the polling shows that he's 90% of mega Republicans are with him

on this work. He is still the defining figure of what mega is for now. And it's probably why I think

Angela is right when he says the political consequences of this in the short term, there will be some.

The long term question is like, what this does to the right is existential. But I think as long

as Donald Trump is still able to basically say what I am for is mega that will hold this thing

together for him and so far at least he's losing independence in a really dramatic way. He's

losing soft Republicans in a dramatic way. Still got 88 to 90% of mega Republicans are still on

his side here. So he continues to, these are all still satellites orbiting around Donald Trump's

son in terms of defining what the mega movement is at least in the short term, at least today

and tomorrow and probably through at least November.

All right, no one's going anywhere. Also had for us Donald Trump's vile attack on California

governor Gavin Newsom is raising some eyebrows, not just for how awful and heartless it was,

but for the major blunder Trump made that is once again making people question Trump's

mental fitness, one of his other favorite things to talk about oddly. We'll have that for you later,

plus how not to win an election. Donald Trump's top economic advisor saying the once quiet part

out loud that the pain consumers feel these days is, quote, the last of our concerns end, quote,

that my White House continues after quick break, don't go anywhere.

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We're back with Tim, Angela and John Tim. I mean, I guess my question for you is what happens now?

A lot of it's going to depend on what happens at the war. I think that some of the negative

consequences of the war at this point are inevitable. It's going to take a long time for the price

of goods to come back down. Who knows exactly, I don't want to pretend to be an expert on what it's

going to take to keep the straight of our moves open, but it seems like that's going to be a dicey

prospect for a while to come, even if we aren't successful in that in a shorter medium term.

What happens? How Trump deals with all that? Does Trump go back to doing silly stuff,

like focusing on the arc to Trump and DC, or does he continue to create damage and create harms

on people's lives? The reality of the world is going to matter. One political thing I think

that has changed, though, is I felt like four months ago, and Angela was talking about how

JD Vance was navigating like the early embers of this feud within MAGA, which I would call like

the MAGA establishment versus America first type folks, which is a lot about Israel and foreign

policy, but some other issues, including Epstein. JD Vance navigated that pretty deathfully. I hate

to compliment JD Vance, but JD Vance was still the chosen person of both sides, like the Trump

one of the sides in the Tucker side. But Trump never laid his hands on him. He was like,

yeah, we'll see, right? But yes, there was a we'll see. There was a we'll see. I'm just saying,

he's in a challenging position. And for a while, at least the Tucker people and the more Trump people

were both JD pro. I think that's kind of over now. I look Tucker had a thing on his show about

how the CIA came after him. Joe Kant has already said he's going to go on Tucker's show after he

resigned today. There's going to be a I think robust anti war anti Israel faction on the MAGA

right. And so I think that what is certain now that has changed is that there will be a full

on civil war going into 2028. I'm not sure which side, JD, he's going to be on in the civil war.

But there will be somebody challenging him from one side of the other. And I think that that's

pretty clear at this point. You know what's interesting to me, Angelo is that for years now,

we've framed a lot of these conversations in terms of measuring Trump's strength or weakness,

correlating it to his narrative dominance. He has no narrative control over the war within his

own movement. That's why this is a story, right? That's why it's news. He's taken the country to war

without talking to the country. He's taken the country to war without tending to his own political

coalition. It's why he starts this war with the lowest approval rating in the history of war in

the United States of America 41%. The political opportunities abound for any politician on the left,

any politician in the center, any politician from a different coalition on the right. And you don't

see a lot of activity. He still has a paralytic impact on our politics. Why do you think that is?

So I think that and I think we should sort of break this into a little part. So one of his

his dominance came from the fact that he took the traditional writing media, the outlets that

are always going to be what they are. They're not dynamic. The Fox News is right, the Ben Shapiro's,

you know, the daily wires. They're very fixed. They are on Trump. They're a team Trump. They're

doing what they've always done for Trump. And so to John's early appointment, he gave that stat about,

you know, Trump's poll numbers amongst Mogher Republicans, how they're so firm. It's because in

that part of the ecosystem and that part of the information landscape, it's Trump all the way. He's

doing great. But then what made Trump such a dawn in figure and why he was able to shape the narrative

for all the normies for people that really, you know, the people consider swing voters,

what felt like such an overwhelming shift was that he took all these others, this constellation

of Maha figures of broadcasts of the manosphere of conspiracy theorists. And he brought them in. He

gave them a good story. And then he leveraged that and harnessed that for political power.

And so, you know, what does that mean that in practice? Well, one, it means that that's why he's

able to have this backstop too. He's lost control of he can't drive the narratives in the same

way that he has historically. And inertia is keeping those outlets in Trump's focus. And let's not

forget all the threats and attacks. They all want to get their mergers and other things. So they're

going to keep things together. And then as you point out though, there's an opportunity though. It's

almost like a pinion of burst and nobody's going for the candy. Why not? Why are people not out there?

Well, some people are talkerists, Marjorie Taylor Greens are. They're thinking about how to

harness and channel this. And what I'm seeing play out in that landscape and that constellation is

what we've been talking about is one of these major opportunities is to pick up that mantle

of anti-Semitism and maybe dust a little shine on it, make it more socially acceptable. But to

say, see, we told you there was something amidst these great powers come along to me. And that's

the irresistible temptation here that so many consumers have is that they want to know why?

Who's the bad guy doing this? Why is all this bad stuff happening? And somebody's going to come

in and capture and harness that. I don't think it's going to be from the left or the center though.

Right now that fault line is where the energy is. And so in order to capture it is that you'd have

to get in there and you'd have to jump into the bridge. And if you're a democratic primary potential

hopeful, are you going to jump in there and say, no, it was not Israel. Do you want to say that?

If you're a bit would you want to make that part of the base potential base so so angry?

So upset because there are a lot of liberals that are going to want to be bought into that

or potential centers that are going to be bought into that. All of the dynamics are shifting. And

that's why I don't think you're seeing that play out yet at least broadly. But it is playing out.

Tucker is becoming an increasingly center of gravity for 2028. I don't think we should sleep on

Marjorie Taylor Green either. These are the figures at the beginning to stretch their wings a little

and build a patchwork of a narrative storytelling engine in the same way that Trump did all the way

back to 2015 when he leapfrog fox for the first time. I just want to button with this one number 65-35.

We are still talking about only 35% of the country. So we're talking about a fracture. I mean,

the 35% who still support Donald Trump 65% of the country up for grabs. And I forever wonder why more

heat and energy isn't spent programming to the 65% of Americans. The six story fits in with that

perfectly. How Donald Trump managed to insult millions of Americans and bring up a brand new round

of questions about his own mental acuity. We'll bring you that story next.

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Donald Trump has never been known for his cogent linear communication style. He describes himself as

engaging in something he calls the weave. But yesterday in the Oval Office, he managed to outdo

himself, going from that weave to something more akin to who am I, where am I,

in my days this, all while managing to insult approximately 65 million Americans in the process.

Take a look.

I'm old for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. I don't want...

I think a president should not have learning disabilities, okay?

And I know it's highly controversial to say such a horrible thing.

The president of the United States, Gavin Newscombe admitted that he has learning disabilities,

dyslexia, everything about him is dumb.

The president of the United States, Gavin Newscombe, okay, if you say so.

Okay, it was rich coming from him while sitting at the Resolute desk and appearing to think that

Gavin Newsom is the president. For his part, Gavin Newsom responded on social media.

That's a bit of a parody, posting quote, now that I, Gavin, see Newsom and officially president

of the United States. Thank you, Donald. I have many big announcements to make. Every American

family now gets a tariff and gas spike refund to buy a cheap electric car. The country is now

run by someone who can actually complete a sentence. America is now hot because you have a

dyslexic president instead of a brain dead one big upgrade governor GCN. We're back to that panel.

I don't even know what to say. I mean, there's to get analyzed at so many levels. I just,

just were saying, there's like 40 million Americans who are dyslexic. And of course, when Trump says

everything about Gavin Newscombe is dumb to equate dyslexia with stupidity is a just, you know,

painfully false. But that's streak of cruelty. It's a very familiar thing with Donald Trump.

And it does seem to open a set of questions that are, I think being asked more loudly than they've

been asked for a long time, which has been building over these years. But we see Trump's cognitive

decline on display. I think more vividly than ever. I'm surprised how little the press covers

that get in the objective metrics of it. You know, there have now been, there's been in the world

of linguistic science and people who do research on this, people who look at Trump's diminishing

vocabulary, diminishing ability to form complete sentences and coherent thoughts, things that have

shown in an empirical way how much they've declined since he first ran for president. Those

things, those stories have been written. I'm surprised, I'm consistently surprised that given the

backing of real scientists who are looking at that and just saying, look at the evidence here,

it's right here, it's playing in front of your face, that he is like a lot of people in their 80s

that he's having some significant mental capacity declines. I'm surprised we don't get more coverage

on a regular basis, especially given the kind of coverage we saw of Joe Biden when he was president.

Why do you think we don't? I think that the, well, I honestly, I don't know the answer to that

question. I think there's a, I think there traditionally in our business, there's been a

reticence, you know, to, to, well, we don't, we don't want to, we don't want to psychoanalyze people.

And I think that sometimes that gets confused between psychoanalysis versus what I'm talking about

when you're measuring someone's vocabulary, that is not psychoanalysis. And I think a lot of

reporters don't kind of necessarily make that distinction very well. And it's always been the case

that in Biden, you could see the signs of his decline because Trump has a lot of energy,

manic energy, crazy energy. Only one is awake. Well, yes, but this has been part of the problem.

Again, we mistake, you know, someone who has crazy persons energy, you know, or like lunatic

energy, manic energy, whatever, but big energy, we mistake that as being someone who has their

crap together, right? And it, you know, there, it, where you, you see someone who looks like they're

sort of slowing down, that's easier to point to and say, well, look, you know, Joe Biden seems to

be really failing here. He's slowing down. There are lots of ways that, that people as they

reach a certain point in their life, there are lots of ways in which they fail or they become

diminished. And it's got a ridiculous that people can't understand that there's more the one

manifestation of mental or cognitive decline. I mean, Tim, yesterday, Trump was sitting next to

Mike Johnson and outed a very severe health condition of a Republican member of Congress that had

never been made public before. I said he was near death, almost dead, would have been dead by June.

To John Howman's point, Joe Biden has said any of those things. I mean, the world would have

stopped. We would have declared a holiday. So everyone could stay home and watch Fox News. I mean,

what is, what explains the asymmetry in your view? He's out there a lot more than Joe Biden

is part of it. And so I think that people like he's in the everybody's face all the time. And so

that gives him a little bit more control over the narrative. I think that is part of it. I think

part of it is kind of one way of what John was saying. I asked Jake Tapper this question when he's

on the pot a couple of months ago. And he was, and he said, you know, I think Trump's in a different

part of the hospital. There's something to that. Even if you have critiques about the coverage,

like there is something to that. But look, I think it's particularly notable on Iran.

You know, I mean, you have to be on top of it when you're the commander-in-chief of a war.

And he's given three press conferences, I think, in the last two days where he's been asked

about this stuff and not exactly hardheading questions. I mean, Peter Ducey was the main

questioner in one of the press conferences. And he's just all over the place. Like I was

saying, he was talking about how we're imminently at risk and how they might have nuked us if we

didn't sign that if you didn't rip up the deal that Obama did. And in addition to the examples

you guys gave, he's just very all over the map and doesn't seem to understand what the point

is of the war or have the details down about what has happened. And so I mean, I do think maybe this

is a moment for people to check back in on this question given kind of the seriousness of the stakes.

Well, Reuters to their great credit has checked back in with the American people on this question,

and here's what they said. 61% of respondents in the poll said they would describe Trump as having

quote, become erratic with age, 89% of Democrats, 30% of Republicans, and 64% of independents

described him this way, just 32% of all respondents think he has not become erratic with age.

When we come back, it's the kind of thing Democrats should be putting in campaign ads.

If you now in November, what Donald Trump's top economic advisor really thinks about the high

cost American consumers are paying right now for everything from groceries to gas and housing

just about everything in between. We'll have that for you next.

As Americans watch prices soar at the gas station when they pay for airline flights,

pay for groceries, cost of everyday goods, which all continue to rise because of Donald Trump,

and lately because of the world choice with Iran, take a listen to what one of Trump's top

economic advisors, Kevin Hassett, said to try to ease the concerns of American consumers and

fail miserably what do them so. The fact is that the U.S. economy is fundamentally

sound and that if it were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very

much at all. It would hurt consumers and we'd have to think about if that continued what we would

have to do about that. But that's really the last of our concerns right now because we're very

confident that this thing is going ahead as scheduled. I mean, to the 65% of Americans who already

don't support Donald Trump, an economic advisor describing economic anxiety and pain has put the

last of our concerns is your, you know, go sign. I mean, they have now said out loud that they

don't give a bleep about economic despair, which is the animating purpose behind just about every

political movement in our country's history. Yeah, I think that that is the one thing that sometimes

Democrats as a whole miss when it comes to the storytelling part of it is that because Trump is

such a, you know, a lightning rod and a singular figure in storytelling, they feel like they always

have to attack him. And some of the ways the best way to get to Trump to expose him to his own

people is to actually make him responsible for all the things that the people around him are saying,

which are basically just on his behalf of reflections. And this is it. This guy's saying the

explicit part, they truly don't care. You know, Trump can be hints at it sometimes, maybe his

body language suggested, but but K-fabe carries him quite a bit. People know he's a character,

and so his own people give him a lot of leeway and a lot of, you know, fourth-dimensional chess.

And again, K-fabe is real, and he's a character to a lot of them, so it's okay. But when people

like this guy get out there and do it, it changes the difference. And that's the Trump administration

saying we don't care. And those are the types of ads that they should be highlighting and emphasizing.

I bet the overall majority of people that you've cited those stats who are already feeling it and

seeing the pain, they're definitely never going to see that because there's no Fox News on the left,

right? There's no analog to what happens on the right wing for them to turn something like that

into a massive echo that everybody then could repeat and reverberate and evangelize. They need

to do it. They need to prime the pump. And that's the perfect example of something that they should

be starting to spin up that storytelling engine. So more people see it and they can connect the

dots themselves. And if they decide to do that, here's another dot to connect.

Last week, Donald Trump told Speaker Mike Johnson in a private conversation that, quote,

no one gives a belief about housing. It's according to four sources who heard the Speaker recount

the conversation. I think polls show everybody cares about, like everybody cares about housing.

Yeah. So much so that I think Donald Trump did something on housing, but he missed a forgotten

about it. Yes, he's forgotten about it already. Do you like to order prior coverage?

Donald Trump doesn't remember him. He went to one of the things he was supposed to do when he

went to Davos and did that, that speech about Greenland. He was supposed to be unveiling

just some stuff in the mortgage market. He was announcing these various policies. Of course,

people care about housing. But again, you know, you go back to it. I, I have a agree with Angela

about this in the sense that Kevin has it that I hear he's, he first researches like John McCain

and McCain, you know, the fundamentals of our economy are strong, which did John McCain no good

in 2008 in the middle of the collapse of the American economy. And then you hear him say, you

know, consumers should be, basically he said consumers should be the least of our worries.

Yes. And yet because Trump is so, is so big, because Trump is, and I mean, big as in, it's,

there's anybody in the administration really register with voters besides Trump. And I think

for a lot of Democrats, they say we have had a hard time pin the tail on Trump, the donkey. We've

run all kinds of negative ads. He says all kinds of crazy stuff. He says offensive stuff. He says

obnoxious stuff. He says stuff that would have been unsayable at any time in our political career.

And yet we've run all those ads. And yet he has still been, at least in the elections when he's

name is on the ballot, not in others. But he's been a juggernaut, right? We haven't been able to

figure out a way to stop him. You think we're going to be able to stop him by putting a bunch of

money behind a Kevin Hassan negative ad? No one in America even knows who Kevin Hassan is. I,

I think it is callous. It runs throughout the administration. I do think it's indicative of how

they really think about this. But the problem is the Trump is, Trump is the totality of Trump,

is a mistrump. And so do we, I mean, nobody pays attention to Marco Rubio as a political,

but ordinary Americans couldn't pick Kevin Hassan out of a lineup. And Democrats could spend

tens of millions of dollars trying to make Kevin Hassan into a poster child for callousness. But Trump

gives them 20 examples that are more vivid and more directly on Donald Trump than Kevin Hassan

ever will. And so you got to kind of figure out where am I going to spend my go? I guess Tim,

I want to bring you to this. I mean, I think it, first of all, you don't ignore it. I mean,

I think this is the person making economic policy because no one, even if you love Trump to death,

thinks that Trump is making economic policy. And to us, not an outlier, the policies reflect this

indifference to the consumers. Yeah, look, Kevin Hassan also gives off not exactly

mega American. All right. And so having him not care about people, I think, is pretty vivid.

But look, I sometimes I think we overrate the political strategist element of this. Like

the economic consequences of this are going to be disastrous. They're going to be disastrous

for consumers. I think this is going to make the case pretty easy for Democrats to make in the fall.

Nothing more vivid than seeing those gas prices go up every day. Forget about Kevin Hassan or

Donald Trump. You see that every day for the next six months. You're on your own message. I'm

Tim Miller, Don Halman, Angela Carousel. I'm going to pleasure to have all three of you for the

hour. Thank you for spending it with me. Quick break for us. We'll be right back.

My guest on this week's episode of The Best People is essential viewing. He is a familiar

face to viewers of this program. He is Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. He shares his insight into

the latest military developments on this program, but getting to sit down with him and dig into his

new book and his career was a real privilege. Listen to what he had to say when I asked him about

accusations from this administration that the military is woke by their theory. If you're curious

about another perspective, your what woke? Is the military woke? I am purposely because I want to

know about other people when I'm working with them. I think you gain a whole lot of strength from

that. Not only just your friends, but also your enemies. You better know what your enemies are

thinking. Football coaches do that. They always scout out the other team. Game tape, yeah. I mean,

you know, I'd be like telling, I don't know, Tommy Tuberville not to have game tapes from,

you know, Auburn when he's coaching at Alabama. It's ridiculous.

You don't want to mess the entire conversation. We talk about his new book, The Lessons on

Leadership, the Being in the Military, taught him and all the ways the current Trump administration

fails to learn those lessons. Do you hear the conversations, scan the QR code on your screen,

or download wherever you get your podcasts. Let me know what you think on Instagram or Blue Sky.

One more break. We'll be right back.

You're going to get used to saying this around here. If it's Tuesday, it's election day.

Tonight we'll be tracking the results from Illinois and that critical Democratic primary to

pick the nominee to run for Dick Durbin's Senate seat. The polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern,

seven central and Ali Valshi, of course, will be at the big board with all the returns. Don't

miss that. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful.

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