Chapter 1: Is the US running out of weapons?
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Head to join.whoop.com slash politics to get started with Whoop today. Welcome to The Rest Is Politics U.S. with me, Cady Kaye. Anthony Scaramucci is off making a movie with his son, which is super exciting. He's been sending me the photos and he is, thank goodness, playing the villain. He looks like a James Bond villain, so I think he's having a good time.
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Chapter 2: What is the financial impact of the Iran war on Americans?
You know, Brzezinski and Carter and even we go to Reagan and Iran-Contra. You have all of these presidents who had these instruments at his disposal to advise and guide his steps. Donald Trump does not follow any of that.
So when you're looking at the economy, when you're looking at the strategy, he's not connecting those dots that the strategy will have an impact in the economy and the economy can have an impact on the strategy. They do go hand in hand. You close the strait, you're going to feel it economically. If you decide to take the pressure off the economy, you open the strait. So it's just that for him.
doesn't compute. Where that leaves us is where we are. My prediction, Katty, is that if and when this war ends sometime this year, we will be where Barack Obama led us.
JCPOA.
That agreement will be the foundation for what comes next. Why? Because it is the thing Iran has already agreed to. And it is the thing Iran is the most familiar with. And it is the thing where Iran felt that not only could it live with it, but its sovereignty, which is important for any nation, stays relatively intact. That's the pressure point.
Let's say we end up there, which I think a lot of people are now speculating that we probably will end up somewhere similar to where Barack Obama ended up. But we also had Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, who was up on the Hill as well. It was a very busy week for people being hauled up in front of the Hill.
The news has come out that in its 79th day, this war effort has so far cost America $29 billion. That's up from the $25 billion that Hegseth had told lawmakers two weeks ago. It doesn't account for the damage that Iran has caused to American bases either. We haven't got a number for that. He said we don't have a number for how much damage has been done there.
And it could end up costing the American taxpayer something like, according to the Harvard Kennedy School, about a trillion dollars in total. Meanwhile, of course, America's actual debt soaring as we talk about this. Did those kind of numbers change?
along with the president's statement that he doesn't care about Americans' finances, come back to haunt Republicans and even Donald Trump in some way as the country goes to the polls in November.
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Chapter 3: How does Trump's attitude affect American finances?
It already has. Not just the polls, the results of elections. I mean, Democrats have won, what, 35, 36 of the 37 special elections that have occurred so far?
Average move to Democrats, 13 points.
It's huge. It's huge. Look, when I was national chairman in 2009 and 2010... That was something I paid attention to is how are we doing in the races that no one is paying attention to right now that no one's calculating? Because for me, as someone who's a party official, I know how those how those stones are laid out to create a pathway towards electoral success down the road.
And so they're telltale signs. And I said back in January, February of this year that the voters are going to reach a point, a tipping point where they begin to bake in the election, how they feel about Trump, how they feel about the economy, how they feel about a lot of things. The war hadn't even happened at that point. And when they do, there's no going back.
You can't get them off of the idea. Ask Joe Biden what the price of eggs did to his administration. Right. Voters made up their mind that the price of eggs was too great for them. There was nothing he could say. And then when they flipped the script to Kamala Harris and she's asked, what would you do differently?
Which is the easiest softball question you could be asked as a presidential candidate. What would you do different? This is not about your party, your connection to the president. What would you do? And she said nothing. What did voters hear?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of Kash Patel's congressional hearing?
Oh, I'm not going to do anything to change the price of eggs for voters. So when Donald Trump now comes out and says, I don't care about the cost of my war to the American people, what are the American people here?
That's his Kamala Harris moment. Because I wanted to talk to you about this because of your experience, because you were chairman of the Republican National Committee right after the financial crash. The economic malaise might have been a bit more acute then, but basically you ran a midterm election based on the economy. That's what the issue was back in 2009. So what point was it in
in the year that you realized President Obama was in for his famous shellacking, that he was going to get hit hard in the middle? At what point was it that you say voters bake in their opinions and after that you can't really change their minds? Is it... Are opinions decided now, April, May? Does the president have a couple more months?
Could he wrap up Iran, hope that gas prices come down by, I don't know, July the 4th holiday? Is there a moment in your mind when the election becomes pretty much predetermined because voters have decided which way to go?
I think we're at that moment in... In some cases, we're past that moment in others. So let's reset for you real quick. 2010 election cycle, that moment for me. Now, remember, we were running on both the economy and health care. because the Affordable Care Act was working its way through the Congress.
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Chapter 5: Why are former FBI agents being fired?
So I was connecting a dot about the government standing between you and your doctor, which is a big deal for a lot of Americans, for most Americans at that time, and making the case about that and tying it to the overall economic health of the country. I knew we had won the election the day Barack Obama referred to the Affordable Care Act as Obamacare. Why? Because now he's speaking my language.
He's using the terms that we use to describe what he did, what he was doing. And the way we were talking about it was not good. It wasn't a nice thing. Obamacare was not a compliment. It was not a compliment.
And so when he started referring to it that way, and he had to because that had been baked into the psyche of the American voter, how they felt about that term, and he translated it to everything. And I kind of put a bow on it with fire Pelosi, right? That was our big push in the fall. If you want to reform this system, then you have to fire Pelosi, right?
In other words, any actor in government who is standing between you and reform, you need to move out of the way. that messaging resonated with voters big. And again, we weren't dealing with a war. We weren't dealing with immigration issues. We were basically dealing with healthcare with the subcurrent of the overall health of the economy coming off out of 2008, 2009. But this is different.
And this is driving voters harder because unlike healthcare, This is something that you feel every day when you go when you have to fill up your car twice or three times a week. It's impact right there. You pay your health care premium once a month. You do the math. You kind of get it worked and you pay the billing.
You move on and you don't really stress about it until about a week before you have to pay it again a month later. This is something you're living out every week, every day, because I'm filling up my car because I have to run the soccer practice for the kids. I got to go to work. I got to go by my parents. So by the time I get to Wednesday, I got to fill up again.
But also, Michael, healthcare, it became much more popular. Obamacare did become much more popular after those 2010 midterms. But healthcare, there was an argument for trying to fix American healthcare to make it better for Americans. We have not had yet. the argument from the president about Iran.
Now, it's interesting that in that little clip, what he says is, we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Well, I think most people would agree with that. I think most Democrats would agree with that. I think most voters would agree with that. But he hasn't connected that and the war. He just hasn't made a very good case.
So you've got people looking at the cost of the war, the cost of gas prices, how this war is now.
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Chapter 6: What are the economic consequences of the Iran war?
It hit Asia very hard. They were down to four-day weeks. It's hitting Europe very hard. Lufthansa's cancelling flights this summer. And it is now starting to hit Americans hard. Without the president having made the case between you're paying this at the pump and we're stopping Iran having a nuclear weapon.
But actually, Barack Obama stopped Iran having a nuclear weapon without going to war and driving up the gas prices.
That's the point. And, you know, Donald Trump is stuck on stupid. I'm sorry, just is because that that is not the argument you make. Because prior presidents have dealt with Iran without going to war with Iran. And as you just noted, Barack Obama actually landed an agreement that Iran agreed to without going to war with Iran. Yes, it took two years.
Yes, it took principled vision of what you wanted the outcome to be. And you moved your negotiators in that direction to achieve that outcome. And they were successful in that. They gave a little bit. They got a lot. Right. Donald Trump doesn't think that way. Donald Trump runs this economy and this government the way he ran his enterprises.
And all of them have largely been run into the ground because Donald Trump is not someone who actually thinks it through. He's unstable in the sense that everything becomes personal and emotional for him. And if it doesn't go its way, then it's a personal affront. And then his response is to lash back, lash out.
And so if Iran gets in the room and says, no, we're not going to do that, his next thing is not to have his new guy, okay, let's lock this down. His thing is to throw bombs. And so it just doesn't play out that way. It's fundamentally not the way... The process is going to allow you to achieve success because you have to be honest in evaluating what your opponent has that they can use
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Chapter 7: How does Trump's foreign policy impact domestic issues?
as their leverage, back to the Strait of Hormuz, back to drones.
Well, and back to all of the intelligence reports showing us that actually they still have about 70% of their missiles.
Absolutely. And all that enriched uranium, they got stuff on the ground, they got stuff spread out. When you disintegrate the intelligence network that is to provide you with the latest currency, intelligence currency that you will need, you've done this. You're walking into a negotiation like this with one eye completely shut.
And then you're at the table and the president blinds you in the other eye, in the good eye, right? And so what do you do if you're sitting there? And let's take this thing back. Where the hell is the Secretary of State? You're sending two morons to negotiate with Iran. I mean, you're sending your son-in-law and a business guy to go and sit down with the Iranians.
And the Iranians are sitting there going, seriously? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Can I have some more coffee? You know? They know this isn't... Seriously, you're going to send Jared Kushner Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. So, Jared, how's the wife and the kids? They good? Okay.
That's the negotiation. Give us Wendy Sherman. And by the way, I had an interesting conversation with Jake Sullivan, who is President Biden's former national security advisor just this morning, who said to me, this oil prices would even be a lot worse and gas prices would be higher for Americans, except guess what?
The Iranians are actually getting out about half of their oil through alternative routes. They're sending out through pipelines. They're trucking oil to Turkey. They're trucking oil to Pakistan. They're even looking at sending it by train to China. So in fact, Iran is not suffering as much. No.
In fact, Katie, on top of that reporting, you have reporting that said that with the current situation, with the American blockade, ooh, ooh, blockade, we like that word, Iran can go another four months. They can go another four months. They have a system. They have contingencies and plans for this. This American has been the great Satan.
They've always envisioned and imagined and planned for this kind of a confrontation with the United States under this regime, right? Under the Khomeini regimes. And so... You don't think over 47 years they've not figured out how to get around our bullshit? And now that's all layered out in plain sight because we've got the idiocracy running our foreign policy?
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from the Trump administration's approach?
Head to TheRestIsPoliticsUS.com to get your tickets. We can't wait to see you out on the road. Okay, let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about the Trump mobile phone that costs you $100 for a deposit, but you may not actually ever get. And Kash Patel up in front of Congress.
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You can buy the T1 phone if you put down a $100 deposit and are quite happy with the idea that you may never get the phone, it may never be made, and that you have been suckered into handing over money to the Trump organization, which may mean we need a little bit more money. Okay, I have to fill everybody in.
This is the only big story that is going around Washington this week after a young man on TikTok who was very unhappy posted a video saying that he had put down a $100 deposit last summer for not one, not two, not three, but four Trump phones, which were announced last by the Trump family, by the Trump sons. They said they were going to be proudly made in America in June of 2025.
And delivery, Michael, don't worry, not very long. If you'd put down $100 in June of 2025, you would get your phone in September of 2025. I mean, that's fine, right? And it was going to be made in America, and it was going to be, guess what color it was going to be?
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