Kristi Noem Fired as Trump's Iran War is about to Make Everything More Expensive

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Welcome, raging moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.

And I'm Jessica Tarlov.

In today's episode of raging moderates, we're discussing how the war will impact your wallet.

Plus, Pam Bondi's subpoena and whether Trump is taking us toward a cover up Epstein.

If you haven't already, please subscribe to our YouTube page

to get up-to-date coverage on everything that's happening.

We got a little bit of breaking news after Scott and I recorded this morning.

DHS Secretary Christy Knowham has just been fired by President Trump.

This is his first firing of a cabinet secretary.

We've been waiting a long time to see something like this.

And it finally came.

It was due to the fact that when she was testifying before the Senate,

a couple of days ago, Senator Kennedy was pushing her on the $220 million

that she spent on ad campaigns and his words to promote herself.

Very effective at that.

And she said the President Trump had authorized it.

And it turns out that that was not the case.

Or at least that's the story he's going with at this point.

I mean, to me, it puts the President in a terribly awkward spot.

Rumors are Mark Wayne Mullin, who's a junior senator from Oklahoma.

Will be Trump's pick to replace her as the DHS secretary of

already seen that John Fetterman is going to be voting

eyes. That doesn't surprise me at all about John Fetterman at this point.

But it's a major shake-up.

Big repudiation, also the way that immigration enforcement

has been being conducted.

But anyway, breaking news update now back to my conversation with Scott.

The Senate just voted down an effort to rein in Trump's war powers,

essentially giving him the green light to continue the fight in Iran.

The House is expected to follow.

At the same time, Trump says he grades the war a 15 out of 10,

even as American troops have been killed.

Gas prices are rising.

And the Pentagon warns the conflict has only just begun.

And while Congress debates strategy,

there are reports Susie Wiles is panicking inside the White House

about the top issues on voters' minds, affordability.

She's scrambling for ways to bring down gas prices

as the war drives energy markets higher.

Democrats meanwhile are still searching for a clear message.

There are calls for briefings in oversight,

but no unified force will stance on the war itself.

And that vacuum is starting to show.

A Marine veteran, Brian McGinnis,

interrupted a Senate hearing to protest the war

and was forcibly removed by police

and Republican Senator Tim Sheehy.

McGinnis now faces charges.

No one wants to fight for Israel!

And

it's rough stuff to watch, especially looking at him in uniform.

The message is also rough, what he's yelling.

You know, no one wants to fight for Israel.

And that is a pervasive sentiment, certainly amongst a certain part of the

megabase and definitely a big subsection of the left.

It feels like the administration is getting more incoherent on this war

as each day passes.

They have too many messengers and not a good enough message.

I think the tone deafness of President Trump saying he

grades this war a 15 out of 10 when we already have six dead service members

is really tough to bear.

I'm not sure if you saw this exchange,

but Pete Hegseth in the morning said that

the press is obsessed with the things that have gone wrong,

like six dead American soldiers just to make President Trump look bad.

And then Caroline levied it, doubled down on it during the press briefing.

And I said yesterday on the five,

go back to the Afghanistan withdrawal under President Biden,

which everybody agreed was a complete disaster.

It was front page news as it should have been that 13 service members passed away

and Pete Hegseth amongst others were out front banging that drum that the Commander in

Chief needs to lead with empathy and understanding for the gravity of what's gone on here.

Yes, people sign up to potentially sacrifice their lives,

but when it actually happens, they should be honored.

And you saw that from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,

but you did not see that from our Secretary of Defense.

So I think we're in a really tough spot.

The money of it matters for spending a billion dollars a day.

We have to spend four million dollars for each of these missiles to knock out 20,000

dollar Russian drones. And I know that you're going to want to talk about this aspect of it.

The fact that we had to call in the Ukrainians to help us out when we've deprived them of the

Tomahawk missiles that would have taken out the Russian drone factories that they're then

supplying to the Iranians is what's the right term for that?

It's like poetic justice in some way. Is that right? I don't know.

It's ironic.

It is ironic to say the least. And I love that Zelensky,

you know, their drop of the hat, I will help you absolutely.

Even though we have ignored his requests, denied his requests, and continue to waffle

on the conflict, the existential conflicts that the Ukrainians are in.

Yeah, there's, I think the president could have made a really solid case to Congress,

which he should have done and tried to pursue an authorization for the use of military force,

which is how we have typically gone to war, if you will. We never get a declaration of war

from Congress. And I think it would have been so much more powerful if he'd gotten just a few

European nations or Gulf nations. And I think he could have to support very clear objectives

around. We have a moment in time where their air defenses are down to go in and take out their

navy, secure the Straits of Formos, make sure that we have minesweepers there, diminish their

capacity to produce armaments and missiles, which only have it in the region, and severely

to capitate leadership there. And here are the objectives. I think he might have been able to get

congressional approval, allies on board. But the messaging here has been so inconsistent.

Republican senators are calling it special operations combat operation. He's calling it war.

We're going to be there. It's going to be regime change. No, it's not going to be regime change.

This could be over in five days. We'll stay as long as we need to. Very difficult for them to

outline or for people to say, what are the clear objectives here? So the messaging has been

totally incompetent. There's evidence that it competence matters. And when you put a new show host

a secretary of defense that things like forgetting how to get thousands or tens of thousands of

Americans and Westerners out of the region safely, like they never thought that through.

The potentially bombing Tehran is not the way to go. There's more people sympathetic to the

West that they should be focusing on the munitions factories and rural areas where there's more

theocracy and more support for the regime. This is just a shit show in terms of messaging. And

people talk about the markets. The real danger here, the markets are basically telling us this war

is going to be ring-fenced and over pretty soon. And gas is up, or oil is up 10%. That'll translate to

about a 25-cent per gallon increase. But for the most parts, the markets are pretty much

yawning. The problem here or the real damage is long-term. And that is the world used to operate

on the American operating system. Our laws, we settled trades in dollars, we protected the shipping

lanes, the transferred the energy. Our 700 military bases overseas enforce the people sort of

played by certain rules. We just repeated a ship. It's the first time a torpedo is sunk a maritime

ship in international waters since World War II. And we used to be the nation protecting others

from rogue nations. And now we are the rogue nation. Now we are the knock at the door because

of this inconsistency and inability to explain our actions and to go about them unilaterally,

which I think is the real tragedy. I think there was real legitimacy for why to do this and why

to do it now. But he's undermined any basic notion that the Trump administration or the people to

execute this operation because of what it just feels like incompetence around messaging

and some tactics. So it's very partisan. It's like 71% of Republicans are in favor, but only 17%

of progressives and then the more indicative, probably honest answers from the independence.

And I think that's more like 3070. So America doesn't like this. And what could even be worse

is that we look weak. And that is if we pick up and get out and come up with fake excuses or fake

fake objectives and just, you know, high-tail it out of there, I think that's even worse for us

because any nation that's worried about our military just starts pointing their missiles at their

neighbors and says, let's fire up the Albanian troll farms to put pressure on the presidency. So

he's backed us into a corner with a lack of preparation, a lack of competence, really inconsistent

messaging. And what in my view could have been handled much differently. It's not the word

self that is hurting Trump. It's the fact that they have executed it so poorly and that they

decided to go out it alone. And we are now that rogue nation.

I think the execution going poorly or that argument, apparently in actual targets that have been

taken out, et cetera, it has gone well. There isn't a level of effectiveness to this, which you

would expect with the American military and the Israelis and all of our golf partners.

The problem is more to your point about the lack of preparation and then the what next

and the follow through to that. And there's been reporting that Secretary Rubio and Hegseth

are fighting internally about the boots on the ground element where Rubio does not want that

to be the case. And Pete Hegseth is all for it, you know, just finished the job no matter what.

And to have that kind of internal feuding with people in those levels of positions, you're not

talking about like Randall staffers having a disagreement, right? You're talking about the two

guys besides the president who need to be on the same page of that. And there is nothing that is

going to matter more to the American public than whether American men and women are going to die

for this. And it also feeds the flames of the argument over how much of the timing was based on

Israel's schedule versus our schedule. And I think you nailed it in pointing out the fact that

there are tens of thousands of Americans or Westerners that are left sitting in hotels

apartments with no way to get out of their private jet travel across like $250,000 to get out.

And I saw that also people are taking their pets because they don't think that they're ever

going to be able to go back, right? This isn't a you can leave for two weeks and then you can come

home. The president himself had to tweet out information of where to call in the state department

because people were essentially getting a wrong number when they were calling in to get help.

So it feels absolutely disastrous on that level and that this is the group of people that

rather than admit that something went badly or changed course will just dig in. And it has such

astronomical consequences, right? To to be the people like the Roy Cone analogy that you

are using the other day when we were talking about this. So I'm I'm pretty bummed about it. And

the Democrats are facing a challenge. There's going to be a request for another $50 billion in

funding. A few of the Democrats, including like Jack Reed, said that they're open to it.

Mark Kelly, a veteran himself is saying I would need to know more than we do right now if you're

going to authorize this amount of money. But I know especially for the veteran community like

Alyssa Slocke and Ruben Gallego that they feel conflicted about it because our men and women are

over there, whether we like it or not at this point. And we are going to come to a time where we run

out of munitions. And that's happening way faster than we expected. What do you think the Democrats

should do in this? Like I think that the reason we have a Democratic government is such that each of

the representatives has a say and people feels that they have to say on big issues like war.

And the president is allowed to unilaterally respond when he feels that we're under threat.

And it's a defensive action. And because they recognize that they declared war when they're not

allowed to without consulting or getting a vote from Congress, they immediately try to couch it as

a defensive move, which resulted in what has been the greatest error to date in this war. And that

was Senator Rubio claiming that an attack from Iran was imminent on one of our allies. And we

were going to have to respond. So we might as well respond now. That is basically saying, oh,

conspiracy theorists on the far right and the far left. You're right. The 2% of the population

in America that is Jewish controls everything, including our military and our decisions. It was just

I don't doubt that Bibi Netanyahu has the president's ear and has a lot of influence over him.

But basically they said that Israel's actions are now dictating what the largest military in

the world does. And by the way, we'll bypass Congress for more concerned with Israel's actions.

Hey, I don't think that's true. But B it just it makes them look weak and hands down in my opinion

the biggest error. And he tried to walk back those comments the next day. In terms of what Democrats

I wouldn't take the argument of I wouldn't even go to I wouldn't even discuss whether or not this

is a good or a bad idea. I'd go straight to do we have a democracy or not? You know, Senator

Warner, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee has had a lot of presidents and heads of CIA

come in front of him. He's very thoughtful and smart and can provide really great feedback.

You want to consult with Senator Kelly, who has flown these missions. You want to you want to

consult with Admost of Redis around naval power. And what is so obvious is that the degradation

in thoughtful input and the wisdom of crowds and the belief in the arrogance that they are

can go about this alone, you know, laterally, and make good decisions without the benefit of our

allies without the benefit of input from people who are very smart and experienced here is a level

of arrogance that ultimately, you know, pops up and gets you. The other thing, and I'm curious if

you saw this, the most disturbing piece of news I've seen in the last 48 hours, is that so many

senior ranking officials in our military have been replaced with what effectively are white

Christian nationalists. That there is rhetoric in meetings, command meetings, planning meetings

of people saying, our president is ordained by Jesus and falling into this weird white Christian

nationalist fucking crazy line of thinking that we owe, we have to protect the Israelis at all

class because when the rapture comes, it's Jesus comes down to Israel and then the Israelis get

to decide, the Jews get to decide if they want to convert or die in the final apocalypse.

And that Donald Trump is a divine being himself. So let me get this now. We're the mollus,

we're the theocracy. Totally. We're the religious lunatics. Yeah. So wait, let me get this. We're

bad shit crazy now. I read that and I thought, oh my gosh, is that that can't be true? And now

there are multiple reports that these fucking wing nuts are saying this shit in front of their

troops. So the messaging has been inconsistent. You're probably right. The tactic so far. I mean,

six service men dying or service people dying. I think it's been four men and four to women.

It's a tragedy. I don't anyone in any way want to be callous about this, but when you declare war

and this is war, people are going to die and 10 10 service people a week kill themselves.

You know, there's a larger discussion around the way we acquit ourselves. I have found

generally speaking when we call people heroes, whether it's teachers or nurses or military,

that means we're about to fuck them and not pay them. And we're not going to give them their

benefits. The only we never call CEOs heroes. We never call people making their fair share,

getting correct compensation being treated with dignity heroes. When you're called a hero in a

Super Bowl commercial, that means you're getting fucked. And so I don't it's like, okay,

yeah, they're heroes. We should honor them. It is a tragedy for them and their families.

And an all volunteer army when you're going to declare war on a nation of 93 million people

and 150,000 members of the RGC. Yeah, there's going to be deaths. I'm shocked there haven't been

more quiet, frankly. So I think that why people are also focusing on what happened to these six

service members is that their deaths were completely preventable. They were in a makeshift

office structure that had six foot walls around it, but nothing on top. So because of the

kinds of drones that were coming, they were able to be killed. And it was another

notch in the argument that we were not prepared to be doing this. And that we started this war too

early and weren't protecting our own people. But I, yes, of course, and I do like that about the

nurses, especially during COVID as I was outside with my pots and pans, right, cheering for all the

essential workers who were exposing themselves to a horrible disease that was killing millions of

people across the world. And I didn't have to do anything about it. So 100%. But I'm so glad that you

brought up this crazy rapture stuff. Because if you take a look at the preachers and pastors

that people in high positions of leadership in this government, subscribe to go to go to their

services, you would think you were watching a documentary on Christian nationalism in this country.

And nobody talks about it. It was barely a blip that people who were controlling huge

government social media accounts, like DHS and the Department of Labor were posting white

nationalist memes and rhetoric, Nazi stuff. It is a huge problem. And the percentage of young people,

especially young men in the Republican Party, like the Gen Z faction that are white

nationalists, they work in elected officials offices. You know, they're not out on the fringes,

just listening to Nick Fuentes and hanging out with one another. They're part of the party

infrastructure. So I'm glad you brought up because I'm always weirded out by the photos of people

like praying around Donald Trump and all of that, but this is like taking it to another

level, especially when you're sending people potentially to die.

And the best performing organization in history, I would argue is the US military, at least the

last 80 years, a combination of technology, culture, or sacrificed courage.

And key to that, or one of the keys to that, and one of the really exciting or wonderful things

about the military is it's been in the great equalizer. And that is there's nothing like being in a

foxhole with someone and having bullets fly over your head where you just don't give a shit any

no longer how rich their dad is, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or their religion.

And it's meant to be a place where they say, okay, we kind of have one religion here and that's

the defense of the United States of America. And they purposely, I think, try to be pretty secular

and say, I mean, it's been, it's the military's played a huge role in the advancement of non-whites.

And immigrants.

Immigrants, and it's because it's supposed to be a character in performance. And I think a key

component of that is to saying, look, you have the, do you remember there was even a controversy,

airline pilots were not allowed to wear Yamacos. And they said, okay, look folks, we get it, we

appreciate your religious freedom. You're free to do whatever you want on evenings and weekends,

but in the military here we have one religion and that's fidelity to the flag and the constitution.

And so the injection of religion, specifically a certain type of any religion, I just think is very

unhealthy and frightening. And I read it and I didn't think it was credible. And then it apparently

came from a variety of institutions. But yeah, I found it really distasteful. The thing I would say

that I think is overestimated in the markets, believe this, is that I believe the economic impact

is largely so far ring-fenced. The biggest moving markets with the South Korean

Cosby, which you could argue was let Samar out after 70 plus percent run last year. But what they've

said is the energy disruption would be greatest in Asia because of the Straits of Hormuz,

where 20 percent of oil flows through, but a disproportionate amount of that oil ends up in the

Asia. And the Korean companies are very energy-consumptive, and they have none of their own energy. So

the markets kind of threw up. But if you look at, I would argue, the risk trade when there's

sort of risk off, you go into metals. And on the night of the attack, metals surge, but they've

come way down. And some the markets and the markets can be wrong because the thing about war is that

your enemy has a voice. Your enemy gets that provide input on what actually happens or doesn't

happen. I don't think anyone expected Iran to start firing missiles at everybody. You know,

you go into a bar and the two biggest kids start beating up on you. So your response is to start

hitting everybody in the bar. And also what's encouraging is the number of missiles being fired out

of Iran at its neighbors is declined dramatically. It looks like they may have sort of, they may have

run out of munitions, if you will. And if you look at the markets historically, they dip when a war

breaks out. And the year after the war ends, the markets usually surge. And so that dip is getting

shallower and shallower because people expect a rebound after things look like they're going to

settle. But right now the markets, I mean, okay, could oil go to 110 bucks? Sure. The markets

are saying right now it doesn't think that's going to happen. Well, the markets also understand

that Donald Trump is a lunatic and they've kind of been able to figure out how to continue to

perform well amongst that. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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Terms apply. Welcome back. Yesterday, a House committee voted to subpoena attorney general

Pam Bondy over her handling of the Epstein files with five Republicans joining Democrats.

That's a real crack in GOP unity and a clear sign that frustration over those documents

isn't fading. Now Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey is going further suggesting Trump's escalating

conflict with Iran may be overshadowing scrutiny of the Epstein files. His warning bombing

another country won't make the Epstein files go away. Oh my gosh, that's a good line.

An AOC echoed a similar sentiment. Let's watch a clip. Trump has impulsively went in on Venezuela.

He impulsively went in on Iran. There was no exit and no end game for either of these

situations. It led to increased global instability everywhere he goes and every time he's done that,

it has been consistent with a spike or a revelation and what is happening with the Epstein files.

I think that he feels existentially tied to it. And I actually think that it is one reason

that he must be removed from office. The girl has a point. The woman, I should say,

I was just being too cool a queen about it. I hate reducing something of this level of import to

he's really freaked out because he's mentioned in Epstein files tens of thousands of times and

feels like the walls are closing in. But that man is such a cornered rat when it comes to this.

And there have been two significant breaks in their defense system. So the first is Pam Bondi

getting subpoenaed and Republicans, five of them joining with the Democrats. The other is

that Howard Lutnik has volunteered to testify. So there was that picture of him that came out

in the big dump like a month ago, but then the DOJ took it down and people noticed and put it

back up, which drew more attention to it. Obviously, and it was him with Jeffrey Epstein and

three unidentified men when he visited the island, but he wasn't with his wife and his kids and

his nannies. He was just hanging out with them, which flies in the face of his testimony under oath

as well. So I think that Trump sees that this is going on and feels even more cornered by it. Because

if they can get those two up there, then they're just going to keep ticking down the list. They're

also calling, which I feels like this should have happened a long time ago. Leon Black is going to

be testifying long overdue in this. So it does feel like there's a pretty strong case that that's

what he's trying to bob and weave around, even if it means taking us to war in the Middle East.

You've always said, Jeffrey Epstein is the most powerful factor in our politics, certainly for

a dead man. Do you think AOC is right on the money?

So when I was a consultant and I would review a deck of someone before they presented it in a

meeting, I would ask a series of questions. One of the questions I would ask would be,

who's in the room that's not in the room? And what I meant by is that you're in a corporation.

If you're presenting a corporation, they're generally bringing in a philosophy of bias or trying to

please someone that is not in the room. And you need to be cognizant of the forces outside of the

room before we got there before we parachute it in. What's going on here? And the two people who are

most in the room, but not in the room right now are one Roy Cone. If you look at these

Senate hearings, basically, it's the Roy Cone philosophy of lie, never acquiesce, never apologize,

double down, double down, never give them an inch fight, be obnoxious. It's just that the

complexion in the way the Trump cabinet members acquit themselves in front of the Senate in these

hearings has taken us to an absolute new low. It's probably been one of the most damaging things for

our brand. Remember when you used to see on the evening news, the South Korean Senate or whatever

breaking into fist fights. And you think, Oh, Jesus, we've now become that where they're asked a

question, they don't answer. And they just keep going on or they call or pambondi calls people

failed lawyers or why you were, you know, they just it's Roy Cone is in the room anytime these

individuals give testimony. I do think in in every meeting on every conversation and every major

initiative, a big question is, how do we potentially keep Epstein out of the news cycle for another

whatever it is another 34 months until the next election because when the end gets peeled back,

it just gets worse and worse and worse. Now, do you think he actually went to war to keep Epstein

out of the news cycle? I don't know. That's a lot even for Trump, but I think it's a free gift with

purchase here that okay, my thesis all along has been the following. There are two or three very smart

people in a room, constantly querying every LLM, what can we do to keep Epstein out of the news?

And ideas, policy programs, tweets on on true social insults. And I think they are every I think

they are monitoring how much Epstein is in the news, especially links to Trump. And then they

are saying whenever it gets above a certain temperature, they're like, Oh, we got a dodge. Yeah,

call Taylor Swift a name or something or say you're going to raise tariffs on Spain 50% like

just suppress, suppress, keep it out of the news. So I'm sure it was I'm sure it was a factor.

I mean, it might have been a tipping factor, but I think the thing that convinced him to do this

was in any geopolitical strategy or long term thinking about America, it was you have a chance

to be a hero here and bring peace to the Middle East and be seen as the iconic president of the

age by doing something only you could do right now. I think it was appealing to a sense of heroism

that probably I think I think this is ego. Well, he has a divine being. There you go. All right,

before we go, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe. As a reminder,

raging moderates is now five days a week with new episodes dropping every weekday evening on

YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify and everywhere else. That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening

and just have a great rest of the week and we'll see you next week. All right, see you later.

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