Thanks.

"-bringing project across the, the, the, the finish line.

I'm a valuable member of team, and I w-ne- wasn't necessarily celebrated in school," and have that moment.

And, um, and, uh, and then people find, again, community.

Like, I'm not the only one holding this story.

And so you have, uh, you know, 17 people come from across the world, and the nation is like, "Oh, you, you have the same desire too to combine faith and vocation together." And they get a group of friends, uh, you know, a tribe to walk with them, um, through their career.

Some of them go back to school.

But, um, yeah, what are you excited for this next season?

Oof, oof.

Most people, uh, clients, they want change.

They want to see something, experience something different now.

And that might be helpful for a minute, but if we don't go to the root cause, then we are not serving them well.

When we see power and control, when we see overpowering in communication or manipulation, emotional distress on the other side, I don't, I'm not able to voice my opinion.

I'm not, uh, a vo- able to provide feedback.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

And we've got some ways for you.

With a net slung over his shoulder, it looks like he belongs in a fairy tale.

Is that a dragonfly? Look at that.

Oh

my

gosh.

This is a female paddle-tailed darner.

And it's one of seven mosaic darners that are found in Alaska.

Can you hear the vibration? Those wings are vibrating pretty rapidly.

So did the Secret Service recommend sending Marco Rubio up in a decoy flight?

That is a, a, a level of information, I just have to be honest, I, I don't have that.

And I think that there are real larger concerns about the breach of trust between the US press corps and the White House.

Th- those are things that can be managed, that didn't have to be managed in the way that it was.

You know, you could tell the press corps some- there's a threat to the president.

We're taking every precaution necessary.

Um, we feel like the threat to, to you and the cabinet, which is staying behind in the, in the Air- Old Air Force One, uh, is manageable.

Jon?

Um, John, first tell us what you're reporting in another scoop on this story.

Yeah.

Well, the irony here, of course, is that the Secret Service carried out one of the most elaborate ruses in presidential history, the type of ruse where you would expect was based on highly credible, highly lethal intelligence.

And what The Post can now report is that the CIA has low confidence in the intelligence that it received from the Israeli government, uh, related to this threat.

Uh, I think, you know, the big picture here is, is telling you a little bit about the risk calculus that the Secret Service is taking right now.

Uh, for a president that has had three high-profile, near-miss as- assassination attempts, this is...

They're clearly quite frazzled at this, at this moment and, and are willing to take extraordinary measures and exercising extraordinary caution when it comes to the president's well-being.

But the, the, the threat's the threat, and either it was not viewed serious enough that they put half the cabinet and all the press on it, or it was, and they stuffed the president into a catering truck

Uh, [whoosh] John Hudson, take us through, take us through the TikTok of what you reported and when you reported it, and what the reaction has been.

Yeah.

Well, this has been a pretty exceptional event, maybe the most, uh, extraordinary, uh, bait and switch in US Secret Service history.

Uh, the, you know, most important thing to remember here, you've laid it out quite well, is this wasn't just simply the president moving from one plane to another.

This was a major deception campaign aimed at a foreign power, uh, in response to evidence that the US received of a threat to the president's life.

Uh, uh, but in, in trying to deceive the Iranians, they deceived the American press corps, they deceived, uh, White House staffers, uh, and, and any number of people who were on Air Force One who believed that they were traveling with the president, when in fact, they were not traveling with the president.

He was secretly smuggled into another plane via, uh, a Turkish catering truck.

Just take me through the reporting arc for all those events that are public-facing.

Uh, take us inside your reporting and this elaborate plan to secretly move the president to a different plane when he left Turkey.

Look, this is a pretty incredible circumstances.

This is not just about the president moving from one plane to another plane.

This is about a deception campaign that was aimed at deceiving a foreign power, but in the process, deceived the American people, deceived the American press corps, and even deceived some White House officials who believed that they were on the plane carrying the President of the United States on Air Force One.

Uh, when in fact, the president was smuggled out of that plane in secrecy on a Turkish catering cart, moved to another plane, uh, which took off and was flying around the same time the other Air Force One was flying.

Uh, it, it's truly a, a, a historic Secret Service, uh, tradecraft event.

Uh, and it raises all sorts of implications with how the, uh, White House, uh, deals with the American press and whether or not, uh, they're being straightforward enough when it comes to, uh, elaborate measures used to protect, uh, the president from a foreign threat

I mean, is it clear to you what did trigger the White House to take such extreme measures in this case?

What are we talking about when we say emotional unsafety, power and control, emotional abuse, emotional immaturity?

Well, we can take just a minute or two, Dr. Hawkins, to remind people, if communication really is the issue, then you'll see that both parties are not functioning well in their communication patterns, right? So that's a give and take on both sides, where they're not listening, they're not validating, they're misunderstanding each other, and they have different communication styles, etc., etc., etc.

However...

When we're recognizing that one person is sabotaging the whole process, then we have to look deeper or closer at that one person, husband or wife, male or female.

It could be either one person.

But somebody, one party is being more of a problem.

We'll call it a problem.

And then we're going to move into how do we do that? And we've got some ways for you.

There's some

folks out there going, why? Dr.

Hawkins, here's what's true.

You know, that doesn't change who he is.

It only changes your message and the way you present it.

It doesn't change the real issue.

The real issue is he's either unwilling or unable to hear you, listen to you, take on.

Speak to detachment and what you see and the impact that that has on the couple and on a relationship.

Yeah.

And well-informed, quite frankly.

But when it's intended to promote an environment where someone is less than another, that's really what we're getting at, right? That the husband is over the wife, and she should be in submission to him.

Now, the scripture says we should be in submissive to God together.

That's what it really says.

When we put that together and we encounter spiritual authority, it says, "Okay, man, you should take authority in your home." That doesn't sound very good.

You should, you are responsible.

That's right.

Uh, what do we know about the reaction inside the Pentagon to this intelligence report?

Yeah, Ayman.

Well, this was created by the intelligence arm that reports to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

And what's so stunning about it is that we, of course, know about the tragic deaths and casualties of US service members, the deaths of civilians in this war, and the cost of the pump.

But what this lays bare is the many geopolitical consequences of this conflict.

And, and let me just go over some of the top lines that are included in this report.

On munitions, obviously, the United States has expended huge numbers of missiles, bombs, and interceptors in this conflict, weapons that would be theoretically quite important, uh, for a future war in China sho- should Taiwan be contested.

[laughs] John, what do we know about the administration's, uh, appetite here for ending the ceasefire and resuming hostilities? There's been some speculation they may come up with a new name and for all variety of reasons to kind of renew the 60-day countdown clock for using or invoking the War Powers Resol- or to avoid invoking the Wars Po- War Powers Resolution, but what do we know about the appetite for resuming hostilities within the administration?

El Faro reporter Carlos Martinez.

From that moment on, the US has in its hands, and still has today, living proof that the government of Nayib Bukele negotiated with a group that, according to the US, is a transnational terrorist group.

Crook is living proof of that.

If the US ever wanted to bury Bukele in a trial, their best option is Crook.

The Washington Post's John Hudson again.

Rubio is trying to seal the deal, and he mentions that he is under pressure from the president.

Bukele at this moment has maximum leverage over the United States, and he says to Marco Rubio, "I need nine MS-13 members in US custody in order for this deal to take place.

You need to give me your word that I'm gonna get these nine men." Rubio then says to Bukele, "You have my word, but there's a problem.

Well, you've seen, uh, a series of tit-for-tat escalations between the Americans and the Iranians, all seemed-

seemed-aimed at trying to get a, a better deal in the end.

Um, uh, obviously, um, you had, uh, a ceasefire and then you had, uh, a blockade, uh, that the United States imposed, uh, at, at the Strait of Hormuz to prevent the Iranians from being able to, uh, benefit economically from, uh, sh, uh, the, the waterway.

And then you had the Iranians saying, um, "You can't blockade, we'll blockade." Um, and so, um, and essentially you have, uh, a very sort of uneasy moment where you've got ships being seized by both sides and you've got, uh, the essentially biggest problem as, of the biggest economic, uh, uh, transit route for oil and gas, 20% of the world's, uh, natural gas and oil, uh, being held up and no potential diplomatic breakthrough in sight.

Uh, uh, and so i- we've got this two sides, you know, standing off with each other and, uh, President Trump seeming to be in a place where his threats, uh, of either civilizational collapse, uh, or, um, you know, vowing that the Iranians are desperate for a deal don't seem to be breaking this logjam.

Why do we all sort of shrug when Trump acts crazy?

I mean, it, it, it's a fair question, and this is something that people have been thinking about for a long time, since the advent of Donald Trump's arrival into politics.

But I think the key difference is that right now you're seeing even some of his most loyal followers start to react in, in shock and, and horror.

John Hudson, what is your, um, sense of the fallout from even his most ardent supporters, not just on the right, but inside the MAGA coalition, saying that Iran ended the war with more leverage than it had before the war began?

Yeah, I mean, the, the, the fallout of this has been pretty stark.

Uh, just look at where the administration began this conflict and where it ended.

Uh, it started by, uh, saying that the Iranian people should rise up, uh, and start a, a, a revolution.

Uh, that, that hasn't happened.

It started by the administration saying they are only going to accept a unconditional surrender of the Iranians.

Now what we're seeing is the Iranians are literally setting the conditions of what's going to happen, and that includes, uh, charging a toll to go through the Hormuz Strait, uh, and it includes a ceasefire in, in, in Lebanon, which is now being heavily contested.

What is Marco Rubio's story?

Fair to say that that is a sign that the military is strained? What does it mean for Ukraine if those munitions are rerouted? And what does it tell you about the priority of this administration if that is how they choose to use America's resources and America's might?

might?It, it's absolutely fair to say that these, uh, that there's, uh, strained resources right now.

I mean, look, the United States is involved in a lot of conflicts around the world, and there are real trade-offs when you end up using the huge amount of munitions that this war in Iran, uh, absolutely devours in a very short amount of time.

Um, the first casualty, of course, could be the Ukrainians.

Um, the, you know, this report, um, which was put forward by my colleague Noah Robertson and Alan Francis, uh, it's, it's very significant given the fact that one of the key munitions that they're considering moving to the Middle East is interceptors.

These interceptors are life and death when it comes to a lot of Ukrainians.

They're constantly trying to shoot Russian missiles out of the sky that are headed towards civilian areas.

John, based on your reporting, are there intermediaries, are there advisors to the President that are making that argument to him, that a draw is about the best they're gonna get here?

What did you learn today from the testimony in terms of both what they testified to and the things that Mark Mazzetti's pointing out, the, the, the realities and the rhetoric that are in tension?

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I, I learned today and what was my takeaway is that, um, but it, it is my understanding that Tulsi Gabbard wanted this hearing to be postponed.

Um, she was very uncomfortable having to be in the position that she was in for a couple reasons.

One, um, clearly somebody w- who has built her political identity on opposing, uh, m- foreign military interventions seen as peripheral to core US interests.

Um, but two, uh, we just saw a very high-profile resignation of one of her underlings, Joe K- Joe Kent, who reports to her, uh, who came out defiantly against the war.

Um, and, and, and this was something...

So, so on, on both cases, she did not want to reveal, uh, any misgivings about the conflict, even though it, it, it directly contradicts much of what she has built her career on.

What is your sense of whether or not that intelligence got to Donald Trump, um, in terms of his public rationales for the war?

Certainly not someone this high profile.

No, it's incredible.

This is the highest level resignation that we've seen in this war so far.

It took a lot of pressure.

I remember during the war in Gaza for Biden administration officials to start stepping down.

This is a much higher ranking senior official, political appointee to step down.

It shows how much this war is really ripping apart the president's MAGA coalition.

It was not related to the war.

Um, what is your understanding for why they can't have the same answers to the same oft asked questions?

I- I- It's a great question.

It- it's almost as if the administration is shopping around uh, uh, rationales for why this conflict happened.

Uh, they've also been shopping around objectives for the conflict, and then shopping around timelines.

Um, a- a- all of those things have, have, have resulted in different responses that the administration has offered.

Uh, the, the only thing that, uh, I can assume is that they're trying to see what sticks and what seems to sound the best.

I mean, you mentioned Secretary Rubio, um, saying that the, one of the reasons why the administration did this is because they felt that Israel was going to attack, and if Israel attacked, then that would result i- in the United States, uh, taking in casualties from, uh, Iran so that they had to enter first.

Yeah

Just last week when I was at the White House, I saw Jared there meeting with the president, though he has no official role in this administration.

No, you're, you're absolutely right.

He has an incredibly strong and, and, uh, interesting and business-related relationship with the president's son-in-law.

He has a very good relationship with the president himself.

Um, what was fascinating about this is, uh, the crown prince has had multiple phone calls with the president in February w- in which the Presid- uh, in which the crown prince advocated for a major US military strike in Iran, according to four people familiar with the conversation.

Um, this was in stark contrast to the public position that Saudi Arabia had, which was in favor of diplomacy.

But people familiar with this campaign that the crown prince was on say that he had communicated to the president that, uh, it would be dangerous to not strike Iran.

Jon, I know I keep pressing you on why now, but on Friday, way back to Friday, you were reporting that the Omani mediators in these negotiations said the two sides were very close.

Who does Trump have doing it, and what do we know about them?

Yeah, it's an interesting team.

He's got the main person leading it, which is, uh, Steve Wyckoff, his special envoy, long-time friend, uh, maybe one of his closest personal friends, uh, throughout his political and business evolution.

He's got the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, who is a close, uh, longtime contact of, uh, Vice President Vance.

You've got his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, uh, and you've got Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio.

So, the- there's been a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and, um, I don't know if anybody have had a Thanksgiving experience recently with a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

Uh, you've had, uh, confusion, you've had different things being directed at different people, um, and, uh, it- it's been a- a little bit chaotic.

Mm-hmm.

Jon, what do we know about where the money is hidden to retrofit Donald Trump's gift, AKA, the free Air Force One?

Well, a- a- as you know, the New York Times ripped the lid off this story, and it was taken from, uh, it's believed to be taken from, uh, nuclear modernization funds.

Uh, the Pentagon spends massive amounts of money to modernize the United States' nuclear arsenal.

Uh, and according to the Times, the money is being taken from that l- portion of the budget that would go towards that, uh, and into the budget, uh, to modernize this plane and- and- and make it Air Force One-ready.

I mean, that- that's something that experts, uh, from a- a variety of different political persuasions have said is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars at a minimum.

And so, you can't just take that out of a- a- a...

You know, that doesn't just come from a small part of the Pentagon budget.

this.But the objective is to get it operational while he's president, so he can then take it with him when he's no longer president?

What more can you tell us about the assessment by senior Iranian officials?

Yes.

That's absolutely right.

Uh, I mean, this was a private communication that these Iranian officials were having.

Uh, it was intercepted.

Uh, the intercept was obtained by US intelligence officials, uh, who viewed it as valuable for US leaders to have in their possession when they're trying to understand, uh, the latest.

Uh, in these communications, Iranian officials, uh, expressed, uh, surprise that there was not as much devastation in the strike as they expected.

Your reaction, Jon Hudson?

Mm.

And that's why Trump has promoted him as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, making him on paper probably the most po- most powerful Cabinet official in the last half century.

Um, i- i- in my view, and I, I wrote a lengthy profile on him, uh, in the recent days is, is that there are parts of Marco Rubio that were always there that have been showing themselves.

And there are parts where he's made massive concessions to the Trump agenda.

Uh, those, those massive concessions are the ones that are so divorced from what Marco Rubio was originally about, th- that's, you know, engaging in opening dialog with America's adversaries, the Russians, Hamas, uh, eh, you know, the M- the Maduro regime.

These are things that y- a President Rubio, you couldn't see him doing.

But there's other more hard-edged policies that Rubio has started to embrace in, in recent years.

And if this moment ends and Rubio wants to be a credible figure on the world stage, how does he explain sitting there, you know, snortling while Trump is humiliating Zelenskyy on the world stage?

Um, John, take me through what you and your colleagues are reporting.

Yeah.

So, it's a very significant development that the National Intelligence Council, which derives its information from the 18 US intelligence agencies, uh, and it- its assessment is that, uh, no, uh, Tren de Aragua, uh, this gang that operates, uh, across the Western hemisphere, is not directed by the Venezuelan government.

Uh, and it- it's significant because, of course, this is the entire rationale, uh, that the Trump administration is using to, uh, round up suspected gang members in the United States and summarily deport them, uh, without due process.

Uh, there had been some inklings from the intelligence community, uh, earlier in February, that were first reported by the New York Times, that this was the case.

Uh, but the National Intelligence Council, uh, really building the more authoritative, uh, and sort of singular voice of the intelligence community saying that, no, what- what President Trump is saying and what the lawyers are saying, uh, there- there's no basis, that this is, uh, that this is- direction is happening from the Venezuelan government.

Uh, a very significant, uh, e- especially, uh, given that, you know, there are a lot of fears that the intelligence community, uh, is being sort of suppressed in some ways by, uh, political appointees, uh, who have a different agenda.

And John, The Washington Post also has some great reporting about the divisions among the conservative movement, um, that this case has illuminated, um, especially with Reagan-appointed judges, uh, rebuking the efforts by the Trump administration to, uh, do nothing basically when ordered by the Supreme Court to, quote, "facilitate his return."