What happened last night, David?

Well, I think the American people – could only be kicked so many times.

And I don't know where I trace the beginning of the backlash.

I certainly think gunning down Americans in the street in Minnesota and the uprising of the people in Minnesota was part of the triggering of it.

I think the war in Iran was And the pushing up of the prices of gas and diesel and Trump sort of violate, you know, I think it was a kind of a sacred tenant with a bunch of his people.

No more forever wars.

And he violated that.

Is it?

I mean, insulting, insulting behavior to public servants who've worked for the government for their lives, right? And in a number of

cases, having to hire the people back after they fire them because they realize that, you know, oh, you're the people who take care of our nuclear waste in America.

Let's not fire you because we got to... deal with the nuclear waste you know and and and so he did a terrible job on that and oh yeah hitler salute and oh yeah kind of a racist and oh yeah running a farm to you know raise little baby elon someplace with multiple baby mamas and oh yeah ketamine and oh yeah big weirdo um and You know, there is a reaction, I think, in a lot of people that the richest guy in the world should not be able to spend half a billion dollars on an election to pick the officials he wants, to get the laws that he wants, so that he can make more and more billions.

Right, to get the government subsidies he wants.

Right.

And so, you know, I think that's part of where we are, frankly.

I think that's part of the watershed that we're in America.

Did you see this post by Tucker Carlson which suggested that Trump had been contemplating using some kind of nuclear force to get at Pickaxe Mountain, the nuclear facility with apparently all the enriched uranium that the Iranians have, that he was considering this after the election?

What's your interpretation of how Trump will be

reading this? How the world should be reading it is that over the course of this 10-day period, I call it World Anti-Fascism Week because the world is having referenda on four different continents about whether or not you want fascist candidates to be running the country.

Vucic was running Serbia for the past almost 10 years, since 2017.

And he was thought to be sort of immovable.

But this student movement, the student list in Serbia took to the streets, got organized, and defeated him.

And that's a big deal because he was one of Putin's two biggest supporters in Europe, along with Viktor Orban, and they're both now gone.

It's also a big deal for Trump, and there is a subtext in all of this, because Trump's family and Trump's friends, Trump's administration was doing all sorts of deals with Vucic.

But I was curious to know if you knew anything about this and had any insight, because I know you have fantastic sources in the intelligence world.

We thought we won the Cold War, but Vladimir Putin kept fighting, and Donald Trump, it seems, now has surrendered.

I think it's true, Lawrence.

You know, think of our lives for the past 30 years.

We reveled in the fact that we ended the Cold War, that we had triumphed, that our way of life had triumphed, that we were this force for good in the world, at least we aspired to be.

But now the president is subordinate to the president of Russia.

He is doing his bidding.

We've seen him bend the knee before, but what he's done in the past few days in terms of this diesel deal, in terms of waiving these sanctions, in terms of cutting back intelligence flows to Ukraine, in terms of the deals that Senator Ossoff was talking about that are being negotiated now, is just say, look, we are publicly on the side of Russia We are publicly against our ally Ukraine.

Any one of those pieces would be too much to believe prior to now, but a president of the United States actually delivering resources to a supplier of a country that would take every opportunity in this current war to try to kill American service members This is so far beyond the wildest dreams of the authors of the impeachment clause of the constitution.

Now, we've heard this before, of course, but this seems to be getting more serious.

Well, it's getting worse.

What's happened in the course of the past week or so is that Trump has completely come out of the closet.

And of course, as we've discussed, this has got many, many flaws with the logic, right? First of all, Diesel we're getting from Russia is not enough to make a difference.

Secondly, they're overcharging for it.

Thirdly, they may not be able to produce it.

But fourth, if we give them billions of dollars, what are they going to use it for? Freeze up money so they can attack Ukraine, attack Ukrainian civilians, make the world less safe, commit more war crimes.

Well, and how resounding a result that then makes any kind of marginal free and fair issues redundant.

And now is the time to talk about all of the gatekeepers and bootlickers from his cabinet to the U.S. Senate.

And enablers, right? Because there were supposed to be guardrails.

And every member of the U.S. Senate and every member of the House took an oath to the Constitution to protect and defend.

And when they said, well, should we give money illegally to the Russians? Or when it said, should we destroy the environment? Or when it said, let's undermine the rule of law? Let's make Todd Blanch.

the fucking attorney general of the United States so that he can go and identify people who Trump sees as enemies and then make up legal cases against them and harass them like Ilhan Omar, an immigrant American citizen who has devoted her whole fucking life to public service.

And we are sending the Gestapo in because they don't like her politics.

OK, meanwhile, who does he support in this race? Ken Paxson? You know, who's a who's a crook, you know, look in state after state after state.

And

So can you bring us up to speed on his suggested ceasefire with Ukraine and Russia, which is supposed to be, uh, they're supposed to stop attacking each other's oil refineries

Yeah, that didn't go so well because he announced it and within an hour there was a Russian attack on a refinery.

Uh, and last week there were 180 odd Russian attacks on a refinery, and it has nothing to do with the ceasefire.

It has to do with Donald Trump's pathological, uh, desire to please his daddy, Vladimir Putin, um, who, you know, and, and, uh, you know, because his other daddy is long gone, and Putin was the next best thing he could find, I guess.

But, you know, what he has done is he has struck a deal, um, to buy Russian oil, which of course, uh, uh, pa- particularly Russian diesel, uh, which we're not supposed to buy, nobody's supposed to buy because we have sanctions against Russia's sale of oil.

Um, uh, but he thought, "Well look, if I buy some of this," um, and he talked about initially three tranches, 300,000 metric tons, 500,000 metric tons, and a million metric tons, then this will help the American oil market and reduce the price of diesel in the US.

There are a couple problems with that.

Mm-hmm.

What did they make of Pete Hegseth's speech?

Well, I mean, you know, they had two kinds of reactions, and one is he's a, a joke, right? I mean, he comes out, he does this kind of free verse about no weirdos and no beardos and this and that.

He talks about high tea and so forth.

And, you know, that's mockable because it's ridiculous.

And then after that it starts getting a little bit darker.

You know, he starts saying, "Well, I'm gonna have the religious, you know, office of religious affairs of the, uh, Pentagon report directly to me, and it's gonna..." You know, and then, and people start seeing, well, this is his white Christian nationalist agenda, and other people of other faiths, which by the way make up the majority of the people in the military, um, don't much like that.

And then he's like, "Oh, gonna fire 20% of the existing generals and admirals." And, uh, and you start to see that, you know, it's darker and darker because the, the Pentagon that he is creating, um, is one where the United States is less ready, more vulnerable.

Mm-hmm.

Where are we now? Do you know, David? What's the, what's the most recent?

Well, the most, the most recent is that we don't know where we are.

Uh, the court's made its decision.

After the court made its decision, the White House didn't comply.

Before, it did comply.

And since then, the White House has been a little bit more selective, saying, "Well, you know, uh, Politico can go here, but CNN can't go here," and so forth.

And it's led to some pretty, uh, uncomfortable displays.

Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

Uh, possibly because of Natalie Harp, but, you know, I...

You know, you can just imagine late at night, Natalie Harp is there saying, "I am your only true follower.

I'm the only one who loves you.

Uh, here are some nice AI slop pictures of you with your shirt off.

You look very attractive.

And these mean people out there are coming to get you." And, and they're, they're in the bubble, the Natalie-Don bubble of how he wants to be perceived, how he wants to be loved, uh, and she just plays to all of his worst impulses.

They've asked America for help, and Trump has said, "No way." I'm very curious about what's gonna happen to Jared Kushner in all this with his affinity partners, which is, uh, uh, as we know, invested in largely by the Saudis.

Uh, yesterday, the commander in thief said, "As long as I'm in charge, robots aren't gonna kill us," which is another way of, you know, him saying that he's our dear father and he will protect us.

Yeah.

There are no, there are no limits to the ignorance of Donald Trump.

There are so many areas that he knows nothing about, and among those areas is AI.

Um, and, uh, you know, he's the only person in Washington who thinks we shouldn't do anything about AI.

It-- the Republicans think we should do X, the Democrats think we should do Y.

The AI people think they should self-regulate themselves.

I-

Any predictions about what this war specifically or what gas prices mean? And if you see any any changes or if there's an issue that matters more?

Look, people's daily lives is the issue that matters the most.

And the reality is that rising prices are the thing that are squeezing people, losing services or squeezing people.

Diesel is up $6, $7.

Gasoline is up $5.

It's not just this war.

Russia was a big producer of a lot of diesel.

I

Mm-hmm.

'Cause here, here you have this super rich guy who's made hundreds of millions of dollars just in the past couple of years cashing in onto his father's presidency, having a wedding in the Bahamas, which is paid for in large part by a crony of, um, Vladimir Putin's, is paid for by Russian money.

He rented the island.

He paid for the fireworks.

What- w- Donald, John Jr. doesn't need to pay for that.

You know, I w- a, a couple of things on this.

One is Trump didn't go to this wedding.

Mm-hmm

And there is no way out, apparently.

Well, th- not so long as that psyche is, is still sort of spluttering forward.

Um, and, uh, you know, that's a ...

That's our, you know, our, our, our, our problem.

You know, I, I have to say, I don't think p- everybody should go, "Well, you know, he's old and he'll drop dead," or, "He'll leave office," or, "Something'll happen sometime soon." I don't think you should, you should be that chill about it.

Because there've been other things happening in the world that remind us that Donald Trump is the product of the efforts of some really cynical people, some of whom are extremely rich, to try to shape the government to serve their economic interests and, at the same time, serve their political biases, which tend to be white supremacist, nationalistic, xenophobic.

Uh, and, uh, you know, there's a great example of that far away in Germany in a state most people in the United States have never heard of.

He also appears to be very willing to make noises that are in sync with this sort of rightwards drift.

Would you like to hear more of that from Democrats?

Well, I'd like to hear more Democrats of what we are gonna do to ensure that the United States will lead and be strong in the future.

And to be honest with you, a lot of that is not, "Let's go back and do it the way Biden did it," or, "Do it the way Obama did it." What it really means is coming up with new approaches 'cause it's a new world.

The Middle East post this war is, is, is broken.

It's not gonna be the same.

Israel is not a dependable ally of the United States anymore.

We are gonna have to find other partners that are stabilizing.

Essentially shooting itself in the foot when it comes to research and development thanks to Donald Trump and, of course, Elon Musk.

Would you like to hear more of that from Democrats?

Well, I'd like to hear more Democrats of what we are going to do to ensure that the United States will lead and be strong in the future.

And to be honest with you, a lot of that is not let's go back and do it the way Biden did it or do it the way Obama did it.

What it really means is coming up with new approaches because it's a new world.

The Middle East post this war is broken.

It's not going to be the same.

Israel is not a dependable ally of the United States anymore.

It's essentially shooting itself in the foot when it comes to research and development, thanks to Donald Trump and, of course, Elon Musk.

Tariffs?

I, I think the po- the policy that is most unpopular, the basket of policies, is economic policies because everybody feels those policies.

If you look at the polls, uh, almost every major policy he has is significantly underwater, whether it's the Iran war, whether it's the tariff wars with the world, whether it's economic policy, whether it's, uh, uh, healthcare policies, take your ...

I mean, in the next couple of months, 25 million Americans are either gonna get kicked off of Medicaid and Medicare or they're gonna lose their subsidies.

25 million.

So that's really unpopular.

Um, and, uh, you know, he's very unpopular.

Dig deeper, however, and understanding the true nature of what has happened and where it may lead offers a direct path to better grasping the true risks of the Trump presidency, the origin of those risks, and how they tie directly into the core existential questions facing our society." Which are, David?

Do you think the, the power attracts a certain kind of young woman?

You know, I'd like to take a step back.

The reality is women, once they entered the workforce and were around men, were, A, put in positions of unequal power usually, and B, there were immediately rumors because people don't have the vocabulary to talk about relationships like that.

Work wife is a fairly new term.

Um, uh, and, and so yeah, you know, since FDR, we have seen people working with presidents who there have been rumors about.

In his case, Missy Land, um, who was an assistant, um, with whom he may or may not have had a relationship.

He had a few relationships, and so there was that.

[laughs]

I feel like that's a big, important story, and I wanted to see what your perspective was.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think there are a few things that happened.

One, it's just the latest example of Donald Trump and the people in his administration trying to flex muscles they don't have, trying to bully Canada in a way that the Canadians have just sort of said, nope.

And, you know, we got to watch Mark Carney all weekend or watch Mark Carney today.

being what we would dream an American president would be.

He's smart.

He understands the issues.

I thought that was going

What is the latest, David?

Uh, wow.

Talk about a segue.

Uh, but the latest is, uh, you know, status quo.

Uh, except, you know, as it goes on and as Iran remains, uh, uh, at odds with the US and firing out, uh, diplomatic statements and firing out Lego videos.

They made a very funny Natalie Harp Lego video.

Um, uh, they made a IndyCar video.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

He didn't get people to pay.

He's destroying it.

He's cutting back on resources.

He has alienated our NATO allies.

Now, where is he going with that? Well, let's go after the Asian allies.

He said he is not participating in the military exercises with the South Koreans 'cause they didn't support his stupid fucked up war with Iran.

Somebody who fights

And let us not forget that, you know, a month ago we were discussing the, the, uh, American business going into Saudi to help them build nuclear facilities

Well, and, and you know, who knows? That may continue, uh, depending on who pays who what, right? Because that's the way Trump works.

It's all very transactional.

But sometimes I think, and I was actually thinking I was gonna write a column for, for you guys on this a little later today, we're, we're covering Trump under the wrong lens.

Because we cover Trump in terms of politics and policy and Washington process.

We don't cover Trump like he's a foreign enemy attacking the United States.

And yet, think of the damage he's done to the Department of Defense, to our weapons stockpiles, to the leadership in the Department of Defense, to the intelligence community, shutting down parts of it that protect us from our enemies, to the law enforcement community with Kash Patel shutting down the parts of it that protect our enemies, to our economy, blowing up the deficit, weakening the dollar, uh, to our ability to do research and development, to our ability to defend ourselves against pandemics, to our ability to, uh, use soft power in the world, which was, you know, through USAID was a big tool.

How are they playing this, understanding what's coming for him in November?

And when his people like Natalie Hart put out pictures of himself and they've made him slimmer and they've removed the bruises, does he think he's slimmer and the bruises aren't still there? Does he have a fake sense of who he is at this point?

For sure he does.

First of all, he's kind of a delusional guy to begin with.

He's always had crazy ideas of who he was, that he's the greatest developer in New York, the most important producer on television, the only guy who can get ratings, the only guy who can solve a problem, the only guy who can end a war.

All those things are completely delusional.

But, you know, he now, as, you know, fewer and fewer people want to have anything to do with him, he's in this tighter and tighter bubble.

And the only reason people have been picked for that bubble is because they lie to him about who he is.

Mm-hmm.

And another instance in which corporate mainstream media is failing us miserably.

I was on the board of one of these sort of moderate organizations for reasons I do not know.

And every board meeting I went to, they blamed everything on the progressives.

And since I feel I'm a progressive, I was like, that's not fair.

And I said, you know, why don't we focus on the fascism that's going on and the people who are destroying our country and the world and not focus all of our attention on AOC, who makes us wet our beds in the middle of the night.

And they wouldn't change it.

So I quit.

Accountability is about righting wrongs so that we can move forward in a different, a fundamentally different way.

Mm-hmm.

Remember when he kept that boat out at sea because he didn't want any more people coming into the country 'cause it would make the numbers go up? Um, and, uh, you know, remember when he said you should maybe consider in- injecting Clorox into your veins? And when his appointees after Fauci came in and then they quit 'cause they knew the numbers were being suppressed, this is a scandal of a s- scale that, the, I don't think we've s- ever seen in the United States.

A million Americans died of COVID.

Hundreds of thousands of them died needlessly.

Um, many of them died as a direct result of policies initiated by Donald Trump.

It had nothing to do with Fauci, and you have these crackpots like RFK Jr. and Rand Paul who are c- too closely associated with the policies that caused the deaths, saying, "No, let's go after Dr. Fauci," one of the most distinguished medical scientists, doctors in our history as a country.

Um, and, you know, I know Tony Fauci.

And it's still not safe.