CHAOS as Trump Deploys ICE to Airports

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Jon Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vittorio. On today's show, we got Trump seemingly making up stories about negotiating with Iran to calm the stock market after he threatened to blow up their power plants, ICE agents being deployed to airports because Trump refuses to fund TSA unless Congress passes a law making it harder for people to vote, Democrats fantasizing about a Schumer-less future and hotter candidates, and the President celebrating the death of Bob Mueller. Then, Lovett talks to strict scrutinies Leah Lippman about the Supreme Court's latest assault on mail-in voting, and lots more.

But first, some exciting news guys. Thanks to all of you listeners, we are, as of this recording, just 484 subscribers away from having 50,000 Friend of the Pod subscribers. So if you haven't yet subscribed, please consider doing so, not just to help us hit 50,000, but so that you don't miss out on all the crooked content

we're putting out for subscribers only. Friend of the Pod subscribers get our new extra episode of Pods of America called Pods of America Only Friends. Other subscriber-only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent sub stack newsletters like Pods Save America Open Tabs,

ad free episodes of all your favorite Crooked Pods, and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent pro-democracy media outlets left

in Trump's America.

And you're saying that Tommy, at 50,000 you'll show feet,

that's right? I do have a wiki feet. I could add to it.

Add, okay. Tommy will show feet.

I wouldn't say they're my best feature.

I was gonna say... That's an ugly ass feet.

We'll give the 50,000th subscriber Trump's phone number. Should I go get my phone? Should we ask him if he thinks the new ayatollah is hot?

This is probably like he's getting to the witching hours, you know

sundowning

Probably calling like during his favorite show. Oh yeah, is this Hannity? Fuck, you're right. No, Hannity 8, right?

Oh yeah, maybe this is Ingram.

He hates Newsmax.

I got a little excited for a second.

I get a little nervous. Me too. I get a little nervous. I know that I feel comfortable that Tommy has a plan but I I do I mean I have to do the Tom Beecher on a recorded line I was gonna tell him how positive America were bigger than men Shapiro and then I wanted to ask him if the new

Supreme Leader is Robin Williams from the birdcage gay or Nathan Lane from the birdcage gay Oh, wow, or Scott Bess a gay or Lindsey Graham gay He's more Lindsey Graham gave anything if Lindsey Graham is gay, which we can't know for sure. We can't know for sure, but but we could ask Trump. We could ask Trump. Don, hit me back.

You could just text him.

I wonder if he texts.

He must.

So anyway, so head to crooked.com slash friends and subscribe. All right, let's get to the news. Roughly 36 hours after Trump threatened to obliterate Iran's power plants unless they reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which caused oil prices to soar, as Iran threatened to retaliate by destroying energy, water, and communications infrastructure across the Middle East, the president backed down just in time for markets to open, claiming that negotiations to end the war are underway, which Iran said isn't true at all

Here's Trump talking to reporters about this Monday morning

tomorrow Morning sometime their time. We were expected to blow up their largest electric generating plants That cost over 10 billion dollars to build one shot. It's gone It collapses. Why would they want that? So they called. I didn't call. They call. They want to make a deal. We're doing a five day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we just keep bombing our little hearts.

You said there's many points of agreement with Iran right now. What can you give us? Many like 15 points. 15 points. Well, they're not going to have a nuclear

weapon. That's number one. That's number one, two and three. They will never have a nuclear weapon. They've agreed to that.

Who's going to be in control of that?

That will be opened very soon. if this works. How soon? And who's in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil? Be jointly controlled.

By who?

Maybe me.

Maybe me. You want the United States to be in control of this? Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah.

Me and Ayatollah TBD.

They're calling it the Tehran taco guys. Are they calling it that? No, no I hope not. Yeah, I bet they are. Yeah, somewhat or somewhere. I realize the simplest answer here is nobody knows because the president has undiagnosed mental disorders but what do you guys think is going on here? How did we get from Trump threatening an escalation that would likely constitute a war crime just on Saturday night,

to a seemingly fabricated story about a possible deal to end the war.

Tommy?

Yeah, we went from zero enrichment, regime change, to, um, uh... joint custody of the Strait of Hormuz? Is that where we're at? Maybe Marco will... That's in Marco's new job. Maybe Rubio will be the chairman of the Strait of Hormuz. He's the bridge. He's the troll that sits and collects the toll at the Strait of Hormuz. That's a good Pete Hexeth job.

He does like a kind of a rhyme scheme, speaking stuff. In between, the price of oil exploded, the stock market fell way off its highs. And I think Trump woke up Monday morning, he saw the Asian and European markets in way down, S&P futures were way down and decided to set up the old taco bat signal. And it's predictable, right? I mean, we know Trump cares about two things.

It's TV coverage and bad moves in the stock market. And the only criticism he probably gets in person at least is from billionaires and CEOs and bankers who can afford to go to his country clubs who will see him and be like, I'm worth a billion less than I was yesterday, sir. And so I think that's what happens with the move. That's why Besant was out, Scott Besant, Treasury Secretary over the weekend.

That's not normally the guy that you'd have talking about airstrikes on IRGC targets, right? It's only about market manipulation. And so this will get him through the short term. I don't believe a word he said in that clip. Like the Iranians know they have leverage. They're going to use it because they don't want to wake up in six months with the Israelis once again bombing them, bombing, going for regime change,

trying to kill off their leaders. Iran has denied that there have been substantive talks. And I've also seen a list of demands from Iran that could include a simultaneous ceasefire in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq, Iran continuing its missile program, Iran codifying its right to nuclear enrichment, Iran getting payments for damages in the war.

Reparations.

Reparations. And then some sort of de facto recognition of their control of the strait, which Trump kind of preemptively grants there. So I don't know, man. JD Vance maybe is going to lead these talks.

I think that'd be a good thing. get Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner away from these talks because they're morons. But also the US Marine contingent gets there on Friday. So yeah, I see about that. I have a question because I read some reports that they're all headed to Islamabad and in Pakistan for talks. And JD, Whitcoff and Kushner are going to meet the meet the I guess the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament there. I saw Pakistani officials said this to Reuters too. But like, question about this, if you're the Speaker

of Parliament in Iran and you're probably next on the Israelis list for targeted assassination, you just popping your head up now, hopping on a plane and going to Islamabad, is that

something that you think the... Probably safer out of the country than in. hopping your head up now, hopping on a plane and going to Islamabad. Is that something that you think the...

Probably safer out of the country than in.

Yeah, there's a moment when Trump was asked who exactly he is negotiating with. It's actually very similar sort of geometrically to when he was asked which president he was talking to and then didn't want to say, and then they all denied it. So Iran's saying these talks aren't happening, Why? Because he suggests if he says who the US is talking to, Israel might kill them.

It also gives you a little bit of a concern about what the negotiating posture can be about promising an end to the conflict when you can't promise that your chief ally won't step in and escalate when you choose not to.

But this is, I mean, I'm like kind of joking, but like also they have killed a bunch of top Iranian officials now, assassinated them. Every time the Iranians have negotiated, we have bombed them or attacked during the negotiation. So if you're the Iranians, why do you try to go negotiate at all at this point? They were complying with the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, when Trump pulled out of it in 2018.

Then the US and Iran were negotiating when the Israelis started the 12-day war, and then we were negotiating again. Apparently, the last round of talks before the most recent war was the most productive yet. Then we bombed them. And then Trump and the press has bragged about how we use talks as subterfuge to trick the

Iranians, right? So now, the Iranians are – they're not dumb. They know that there's 7,500-plus Marines heading to the Middle East right now. And look, I mean, the Israelis have killed a lot of people who have been our interlocutors in talks. They can kill the, you know, the Speaker of Parliament.

The power structure in Iran is the IRGC. It's the military. And like, so that's who's going to be calling the shots here. And so I just, I don't know, Trump could be like, Oh, I have a secret source like Dulce Rodriguez of Iran. I just don't, I don't buy it. Yeah. I saw that a bunch of Trump officials just told Politico too. They they're doing the Dulce Rodriguez thing again with the speaker of parliament. They're like, this is, this

is what he's looking for. And one does that mean? People are talking about him a lot. They think he's someone that they can deal with. He's a hot option, but they gotta test him out.

They gotta test him out first, that's what they said.

Is he hot?

Did we look?

We're not at that part of the show yet.

Don't skip ahead to our hot candidate section. Hot Iranian? Hot Iranian section, yeah. The administration has gotten several Iranian generals up to like 3000 or 4000 degrees. So. Jesus.

Tough.

Oof.

So there's that.

I do think that the trouble for Trump here is that like, taco speak aside, like he doesn't just get to cancel the war like he canceled some of his tariffs. Like the Iranians and the Israelis kind of can do whatever they want

and keep this thing going in a way that really wreaks havoc on the global economy and our own for as long as they want?

Yes. Look, what an extraordinary couple of weeks this has been. First, a war launched without Congress, without clear goals.

Goals that evolved over the, basically over the course of that weekend. Goals that evolved over the, basically over the course of that weekend.

They didn't really land on, if there's one set of goals.