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The President of the United States has officially gone mad. That can be the only conclusion after Trump’s genocidal threats this week to destroy the entire country of Iran, before announcing a two week ceasefire. This week Alex looks at the consequences of the mad king’s actions both abroad and at home. First, she speaks to Mohamed Arrachedi, the Arab world and Iran network coordinator for the International Transport Workers’ Federation, to hear about the dire conditions thousands of seafarers are living in while they remain trapped on ships because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Then she speaks to Brian Tyler Cohen, host of the No Lie podcast, to talk through the growing chorus of MAGA voices turning against Trump, and the movement to use the 25th amendment to unseat him.

TRANSCRIPT

Alex Wagner: Hi, everyone. Greetings from the airlock between nuclear war and ceasefire. It is weird here, and I’m not sure I feel all that safe. We find ourselves in a fragile moment of, I guess we’ll call it calm, as President Trump and the Iranian regime negotiate terms to maybe, just maybe, end this war. Or, you know, not. It has been a long week, and it is not nearly over yet. On Monday, President Trump spoke to the press at the White House and announced a plan to obliterate Iran.

[clip of Donald Trump]: The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.

Alex Wagner: By Tuesday evening, 90 minutes before a deadline that no one was really sure was real but also didn’t not want to take seriously, Trump was back on Truth Social announcing a temporary ceasefire. Quote, “based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. Now, the Iranians have reportedly accepted Trump’s offer and the cost of crude oil, which had approached $150 a barrel, a record price, the cost to crude plunged after the ceasefire was announced. Formal negotiations between the U.S. and Iran begin this Friday. Which will be moderated by Pakistan. And they are sure to be kinetic negotiations. Iran has already said it intends to retain control of the Strait of Hormuz even after the war is over. And President Trump has said he’d like to co-own the Strait with Iran and maybe even rename it the Strait of Trump, which sounds not only tacky, but delusional. In the meantime, gas prices in the U.S. are over $4 a gallon. Around the world and particularly in Asia, fuel prices are so high that the government of Vietnam has told people to work from home and in the Philippines, there is a national emergency. The continued closure of the Strait is causing havoc across the global economy. Jet fuel costs have doubled, leading airlines to reduce flights and push up ticket prices. Prices of petroleum-based materials like plastic are spiking. Fertilizer shortages caused by a shortage of natural gasses are taking a wrecking ball to agriculture industries everywhere. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has had just a profoundly destabilizing effect on the entire planet. And in the middle of it, quite literally, are the people who have been waiting for weeks now for the waterway to open back up. The sailors who have been trapped on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. I’m Alex Wagner, and this week on Runaway Country, about 2,000 ships are currently stuck in and around the Persian Gulf. Aboard them are over 20,000 seafarers. And very few of these sailors are getting the basic supplies they need, even as their safe passage has become an issue of global concern. Today, we’re going to be talking to Mohamed Arrachedi, an Arab World and Iran Network coordinator for the International Transport Workers Federation, or the ITF. That’s a labor union that represents a million seafarers all over the world. The ITF has received over a thousand requests for support from crews near the Strait of Hormuz and many of them fall to Mohamed. Often by the time the messages reach him, the stranded seafarer’s calling for help have already lost their internet connection. We talked about what it is like to be caught in limbo aboard a ship without adequate food or supplies or assurance that your vessel isn’t going to be bombed. Then I’m sitting down with political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen to discuss the Mad King’s latest move, whether a ceasefire should quiet Democratic calls to invoke the 25th Amendment, and whether there is some sort of silver lining in all of this for people who drive Rivians. But first, my conversation with Mohamed Arrachedi to get a firsthand look at what’s going down in the Persian Gulf. Mohamed, welcome to Runaway Country. First of all, thank you for doing this. I know we’re in opposite sides of the world right now. I’m in Hawaii and you’re in Spain, so [laughs] we can’t get further apart than this. Throughout this conflict, I have been so eager to know what the experience has been like for the actual sailors and captains who have been caught in all of this. And I think there are about 20,000 seafarers that are in the middle of the Iranian conflict. I know that you’re a point person, essentially, between a lot of those folks and their union. I wonder if you could just begin by telling me what you’ve been hearing from the people in your union who are in the middle of this Iranian war.

Mohamed Arrachedi: Well, thank you for the invite and the opportunity. Well, the first week where the war started, most of the complaints and requests and information requests and inquiries were based on requests of repatriation. The number was very small, referring to lack of food and provisions. But from the fourth week of the war, we observed that the more and more complaints of deceiver include lack and shortage of food. The space is limited on the ship, so, of course, everything has to be supplied from ashore. If the ships are normally trading in an area you know seven days normally they don’t take even provisions for one month because the ship owners normally look where it is cheap. So if the vessel is trading from Norway and next port will be Turkey they will obviously wait for Turkey or Egypt to, to buy.

Alex Wagner: So they try and they try to find supplies in cheaper parts of the world, but they’re not able to move.

Mohamed Arrachedi: And when this happens, then you are stuck in the middle of the almost Strait.

Alex Wagner: You’re saying that most of these ships are not equipped to be floating and basically in a holding pattern for weeks, if not months on end. They have supplies for several days, and then the expectation is they’re going to restock in a different port or a different area. That’s not happening. So they’re forced to rely on what they do have on board. And the reports we’re hearing, I’m thinking of this Wall Street Journal article in particular, make it sound like a really dire situation. There’s the question of. Food and drinking water, but then there’s just the basic, you know, necessities for living that they need, that they to procure on the ship. It says that some, the Wall Street Journal reports that some Chinese crew members have been collecting condensate from air conditioning units for their non-drinking water needs. I mean, is anybody able to help these guys out, or is the situation precarious enough that they really do just need to find whatever they can on board their ships.

Mohamed Arrachedi: What you are saying is absolutely true. I mean, here the reality is much worse than our imagination. We refer to this also, this situation you have been describing, exist notorious situations and exist, and we have been denouncing them for four years now. When someone is put on board, someone from Egypt, Myanmar, Philippines, India. Or Indonesia is put on a vessel owned in France, Germany, Spain or Emirates or any place in Australia or anywhere. The seafarer here is the one vulnerable, is the very exposed. The seafarer cannot go out even to beg for food. He has immigration. The war has come to reveal dramatic situations of exploitation that already exist from one side. Just reveal them, just expose them. Expose more what we have already because we have cases now of seafarers who come to us in Iran. I have just a couple of cases asking me, please, we want to go home. We are foreigners. We just want to home. So your request is that we help you to go home? Yes, sir. Okay. And I have a curiosity. Do you have any issue with the money? Oh, well, we have not been paid for eight months.

Alex Wagner: Wow.

Mohamed Arrachedi: Okay, so sorry. You don’t want only to go home. You want to go and get the—

Alex Wagner: Your wages.

Mohamed Arrachedi: —get your wages and how much is that? Eight months. So you see, this is a case of abandonment.

Alex Wagner: This is a situation where these these seafarers and people that are crewing these ships are really hostage, not just physically, they can’t leave the ship, but financially, like they haven’t been paid, so they’re forced to stay on the ship or come up with some deal with their employers in an insanely unpredictable situation that’s incredibly dangerous.

Mohamed Arrachedi: Absolutely, because if they leave the vessel, a vessel that is owned in country A, the management is in a country B. The real owner, the real beneficial owner, you don’t know even who he is. You don’t even know if he’s a physical person or he is an investment company. You don’t who he is, the seafarer is, is exposed and is vulnerable and is systemically exploited by bad cheap owners. There are some crews who just make money in total impunity, not hesitating to use modern slavery, because this is what it is.

Alex Wagner: I wonder if you could give me a sense of, you know, you’re getting these WhatsApp messages, you’re get text messages from these people who are at the center of a conflict zone and who went not having any expectation that they would be stuck in the middle of a conflicts zone, right? Are they scared? I mean, I wanna get to the sort of developments of this week in a second, but have they been scared that they’re gonna die? I would imagine it feels incredibly perilous to be where they are.

Mohamed Arrachedi: No request we have received can be typified as normal. All of them were extraordinary. Panic, stress, some of them crying. Please get me out of here. So please help me to go. I just want to go home. I have a family. I have kids. I put emphasis on this, that all the calls we do receive, one o’clock in the morning, three o’ clock in the morning, you’re awake, you see that you have a WhatsApp. Message, but you look, you see that there are four, seven calls because it was the moment when he had access to the internet, so it was a moment he had to send messages. Part of the ones who were sending us these messages from Iraq, from Kuwait, from Emirates, they were sending videos and pictures. Look, there is a bombing one mile from us, there is a bombing, the port has been attacked, so they take videos, they take, you know, and then you have the father, the family, the wife texting you. Please help our family to come home. It is really, really, it is really… Yeah.

Alex Wagner: President Trump announced a ceasefire this week. Do you think life will get better for these safe areas? I mean, are you optimistic that ships will begin passage through the Strait? Iran is saying that it will allow non-hostile ships to pass through. Are people taking a chance on that? Are these crews going to start sailing?

Mohamed Arrachedi: The ITF we have just issued this morning a press release welcoming this at our political level. Now what we need to see is concrete steps how this will develop. So it’s too early now to evaluate how this would be done in the field because there is a lot of logistics there to be done. For example, I have a case in Iraq and we were working with the company. To evacuate, because it’s rather than repatriation, it’s more than evacuation, because it’s a war and these are civilians. So instead of the options they were working on to repatriate them through Turkey or Armenia or Jordan, now hopefully with the ceasefire maybe the [?] in Iraq are open, there is more for easy for these guys for example. 11 seafarers from Indonesia who are eager to leave can go home. We have this crew in Iran where the airports are also closed, so these seafarers, foreign seafarers, not local Iranians, can go home hopefully. So this certainly the ceasefire opens a big hope. So this is a good decision, it’s welcome, and what we need now is to see concrete steps on the field, how this can be durable and and guaranteed because the seafarers should have never been exposed to this. They should be never exposed.

Alex Wagner: I’ve been thinking so much about them because they’re the linkage in this entire sort of global economy that people, I think, hear less from, but are integral to the functioning of a global economy. So what an extraordinary situation they are in and what a dire situation. It’s so helpful to hear your perspective. You’re the mouthpiece for them because we obviously can’t speak with the people who are stranded without internet in dire perilous situations. So thank you so much for taking the time to help us understand what’s going on aboard those ships.

Mohamed Arrachedi: Thanks, all thanks to you for wanting to put the light on these notorious realities which are not known for the big public, part of the battle is in the public opinion, so the more public opinion knows about this, the more awareness rises and the more pressure surely on the one who takes political decisions can take in favor of the seafarers. So thank you. [music plays]

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: Brian Tyler Cohen, I, as you know, as everyone is, I am a long time fan. This is the first time you’ve been on Runaway Country and what a motherfucking week to come on. We had to change our taping time because—

Brian Tyler Cohen: Well, we weren’t sure if a country of 93 million people was gonna exist today, so.

Alex Wagner: And, boy, are we glad that it does, but we needed to make sure we had conclusive, we will believe that we had some kind of even temporary conclusion on that question before we started. Brian, before I spoke with you, I spoke with a representative from the international, like effectively seafarers union who is in with all the seafarers, the captains and the crew members who were stuck on these ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And let me tell you, like, Trump may want to be, like declaring victory on all that, but the situation there is so dire, and so perilous. And I think, while I’m a fan of peace, we are going to look at all of this with a gimlet eye, because a lot of the stuff that the president is trying to shove down the American people’s throats is totally bogus. So I wanted to get is kind of the domestic implications of all of this with you. Firstly, the biggest picture, the idea that the mad king is threatening war crimes to secure a two-week ceasefire. Good strategy, Brian? Bad strategy. Do you have thoughts on that?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I’m gonna fall on the bad strategy end of this. Look, I think for Trump, like a normal human being who is not a sociopath would think twice about the prospect of engaging in full blown genocide and full blown nuclear war, but Trump has no personal skin in the game. And so for him, there’s really no downside. I mean, for normal people, if they’re thinking about sending soldiers to the Middle East where they’re dying or getting wounded and injured, I mean, that weighs heavily on them. But for Trump, I mean he’s not going, his kids aren’t going. So, you know, it’s no skin off his back. You know, it doesn’t cost him any money. And so he’s perfectly content to take all of the funding for domestic priorities and put it toward the defense budget or ask for this $200 billion supplemental, whatever comes first. And so it’s not his money, it’s house money that he’s playing with. And so for Trump… The stakes are so low because he’s not personally impacted. He doesn’t have any skin in the game here. And his focus has always been on just building his legacy. He wants to be king of the world. He wants to be Kingmaker. He was the topple regimes. He did it in Venezuela pretty easily. And so now his his sights get set on Iran where he thought he could do it easily as well. And he’s already previewed that he wants to do the same thing in Cuba. And so this is all about his ego and building up his legacy. That’s why instead of making healthcare more affordable in America, he’s focused on his ballroom. That’s why instead of making sure that food assistance is available for the hungriest Americans, he’s focused on on building an arch in D.C. That’s why instead of lowering costs for Americans, he stuck his name on the Kennedy Center and is renovating the marble there. I mean, everything that he’s doing is about bolstering his own legacy, and none of it is about helping regular people or taking into account how regular people are being impacted by all of this. So this is a legacy play. And when Trump has no personal skin in the game, The sky is the limit, and if that means threatening nuclear war and the total annihilation of an entire civilization, clearly he has no qualms about doing it.

Alex Wagner: I mean, it’s just a sign of the times, isn’t it? That like his version of not having any skin in the game is not giving shit about whether or not the U.S. extinguishes a civilization. Like just let’s just hang on the sadistic impulse of that. That like the extinguishing of life en masse killing. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people is like no issue for Trump because they’re not people He knows like that is a statement of priorities and a real denial of like basic shared humanity It is some dark shit that he is so easily able to threaten genocide with no particular compunction, you know with no pause. I I do what I mean we sit here and there’s so much of this is a quickly moving weather front, but as we sit right now, there’s this very fragile ceasefire. And I am skeptical that any of the things Trump says he’s going to get out of a potential deal with Iran are even going to come to pass, right? He already is referring to what’s happened in Iran as regime change. This morning on Truth Social, he’s calling it regime change, it is actually the inversion of whatever regime change is. It is like a dynastic continuation.

Brian Tyler Cohen: A continuation of Khamenei’s son who is younger and so inherently he has more staying power than his 86-year-old ill father had and so all he’s done is like basically entrenched the regime by replacing you know the the fragile part of that regime with somebody who is much less fragile and if reports are correct somebody who’s more hard-line than his father was.

Alex Wagner: And by the way, who was not seen? And I’m not an Iran watcher in any sort of close fashion, but every bit of reporting I’ve heard is that the second Ayatollah Khamenei was not the shoo-in for leadership after his father died, but because of the way Trump managed this war, he became the shoo-in. And not only did Trump not change the regime, he had a chance at having a more, I suppose, democratically focused individual at the top power position, but foreclosed that by launching this ill-advised war choice. I digress. I think for some people, Brian, they’re and I speak from an American perspective, there’s a part of the American audience that’s not going to really know or give a shit about like who’s leading Iran. So they’ll take Trump’s assertion of regime change, maybe, and not think too much about it. But the one thing Americans do know about is how much their gas costs. And to me, that’s where Trump’s plan to just lie to everybody and assume nobody pays any attention is totally flawed. Um, gas prices are still above $4 a gallon. I think you live in the Republic of California where they’re like $15 a gallon?

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah.

Alex Wagner: People understand gas prices. And I was struck by this bit of reporting in the New York Times today. It’s like, you can figure out whatever arrangement you want with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, but gas prices, are going to stay high. Because, and I’ll read you this excerpt Brian and then get your thoughts, dozens of refineries, storage facilities, and oil and gas fields in at least nine countries from Iran to the UAE and beyond have been targeted in these strikes. All told, I didn’t know this, 10 percent or more of the world’s oil supply has been turned off. Restarting those operations will require not only safe passage through the Strait, but also inspecting pumps, replacing bespoke processing equipment and recalling employees and ships that have scattered across the globe. Also, once you turn off an oil or gas well, it’s really difficult to restart them. This is a problem that does not resolve itself by Friday. And I wonder how significant you think that is for a president who tends to just lie and assume that reality won’t catch up with him.

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think that’s exactly right. And look, these prices aren’t going to come down anytime soon. As it goes with gas prices rising anyway, they always go up like a rocket and come down like a feather. And that’s without major infrastructure being destroyed. So I wouldn’t expect any of these prices to come any time soon, which means the cost of goods is not going to cut come down any time sooner because those costs are all impacted by high oil prices because it costs more money to transport all of this stuff. But I think more broadly, like taking a step back from all of this, you know, the irony of Trump engaging in all of his behavior isn’t lost on me, given the fact that this is the issue on which he ran and won in 2024. If anybody understands the potency of high prices and the pain that it that it inflicts Americans, it’s Donald Trump. He’s admitted that, you know, that old-fashioned word of groceries is why he won the election. So he knows because he exploited this issue every fucking day on the campaign trail in 2024. And yet now, you the first thing he did when he got into office was launch a trade war that raised the cost of everything. One big, beautiful bill cut Medicaid from 17 million Americans, cut food assistance to the tune of $186 billion. Then the Republicans refused to continue those ACA subsidies, that impacts 24 million Americans. And so, you know, and then on top of that, you’ve got high gas prices that are going to impact everything and everyone. And so if anybody understands this issue, it’s Trump, because again, he he ran and won on this issue. But it just goes to show that he has he has contempt for his own voters, that that he was perfectly content to exploit this issue when it meant that he could, you know, get something from from these people, which namely their votes. But now that he’s in office, now that he’s got power, he doesn’t care anymore. And he’ll turn around and watch prices rise on everything and have not a second thought about any of it.

Alex Wagner: So. The White House, it’s just really clear from the reporting that they really did not gain this one out in any sort of reasonable way. And, you know, Susie Wiles, according to the New York Times, was the president’s chief of staff was the one who was like, um, just to note, like, uh, if gas prices go high, maybe that’s not a great thing for the midterm elections we have rolling around in a couple of months. I will also say, you now, I sound like a CNBC reporter, but like. The summer travel vacation season is upon us and like what gets more expensive? Driving and flying in airplanes. Like the American audience is gonna continue to feel the after, this is assuming the ceasefire holds, right? The American audience is gonna continue to the pain of Trump’s war and it’s not a mystery why it’s happened. In part, Brian, because Trump played his hand so badly in this, not just in not understanding what the implications of his war of choice might be. But also in expressing, I was super surprised by this. I mean, nothing he does should surprise me. But he was so clearly obsessed with the Strait of Hormuz and has been for this entire time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why gas prices are high. I mean Trump basically put a neon sign above the Strat and was like, this is a major political problem for me and I need the Iranians to fix it. And I will draw everybody’s attention to the tweet that shocked the conscience this weekend when he wrote, publicly, Open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you’ll be living in hell Just watch and then praise be to Allah. We’ll set aside the like Islama—

Brian Tyler Cohen: You gotta include the praise be to Allah, just your standard Easter messaging there.

Alex Wagner: Were you surprised by how emotionally naked he was about all this? It’s such bad strategy.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Everything he does is ham-handed, but I think it was poor strategy because it shows the Iranians, it shows, the rest of the world that while he may come out on a daily basis and say, you know what? The Strait’s going to open itself. We don’t need the Strait. Europe’s going to take care of the Straits. And then you see that moment of just naked vulnerability where he’s like, over the fucking Strait, and that doesn’t happen if you think, like you’ve said before, that it’s going take care itself or that Europe’s going care of it or that your, you know, that your hands are clean. He showed his entire ass for some good imagery here. Showed his entire in that moment. And I think that that showed the Iranians that like they have a major point of leverage and the whole world knows that if there’s one thing Americans care about, it’s oil prices. Like my whole life we have been fighting wars for oil. Even Trump himself admitted that when he wanted regime change in Venezuela, it was for oil, So, like, Iran has this major point of leverage over the United States, and Trump keeps— keeps because again he’s ham handed keeps putting on full display how much power they actually have and how how weak his hand actually is.

Alex Wagner: What surprises me is it that he hasn’t, it’s like he thinks he can just strong earn them into doing something. And like even today, as we sit, there’s like a 10 point plan the Iranians have put forward or a 15 point plan. I can’t remember who has a 10-point plan, who has the 15-point plan.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah I think I think the Iranians had the ten point plan and that was the one—

Alex Wagner: The Iranians have a 10-point plan that gives them full control of the Strait of Hormuz. And Trump is over here being like, we’re going to do a co-production. Like, I don’t know if we’re gonna call it the Strait of Trump, but we’re gonna co-own it. It’s like, hey, bro, you can’t just manifest that.

Brian Tyler Cohen: And not only that, like they can also charge tolls now going through. So they’re going to make a boatload of money by reopening the Strait that was already open before we engaged in any of this. So at the end of the day, what we have to show from this whole from this whole, like multi-billion dollar engagement is that Iran has the ability to make even more money than before. We’ve had American service members who’ve died, American service members who have been injured are are standing in the world, of course, is decimated because the leader of the United States is threatening outright genocide and so do we have anything, anything positive to show from this whole thing?

Alex Wagner: Well, at least we’ve relaxed oil sanctions on Russian oil and put more money in Vladimir Putin’s pocket at the precise time that he’s fighting the Ukrainians in a war for democracy. And thank God we’ve eased sanctions on Iranian oil and put money in the hands of an even more hardline regime. Cool. What a win. More with Brian right after a quick break.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: I mean, I do, I have to say that for a minute this week, it felt like. On Tuesday, when Trump was really threatening to destroy a civilization, using social media to issue his threats, Democrats and some prominent conservatives were like, okay, enough here. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment. I want to play for you some sound from Ro Khanna, who is probably one of the more prominent Democrats calling for the invocation of that amendment.

[clip of Ro Khanna]: If the United States Congress has any life left in it, every member of Congress and Senator must be calling for Trump’s removal today based on the 25th Amendment. He’s threatening the entire destruction of a civilization. He is calling Iranians animals. He is showing a total disregard for the humanity of people in Iran, in Gaza, in Cuba. This is a moral crime. It is a war crime. We need to be demanding that Congress convene today and we need to invoking the 25th Amendment.

Alex Wagner: Okay, what happens now, Brian? I mean, the dude is not any less crazy. It’s not like he’s a different person today, but should Democrats drop the calls? I mean what do you think from a progressive standpoint the right move here is?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think on two fronts, it’s the right move to continue pushing this forward because one is the moral thing to do. Like you said, Trump is not a different person. This is the same ass guy who yesterday called for the genocide of 93 million people. That’s who he is. Because he’s not saying it outright today, doesn’t make it any less him or reflective of his beliefs. And so from a moral perspective, absolutely, it’s the right thing to do. And from more of a strategic or political perspective, I think every day that we put Trump on defense is a day that he’s not able to go on offense. And this is somebody who has shown a really impressive ability to navigate the media and to garner positive coverage for himself or positive spin for himself. But if you’re contending with calls for your own cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment or for Congress to impeach this president, I think inherently you don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of being on offense here. And so politically speaking, morally speaking, I think that calling for this guy to be, you know, taken out of this position is the right thing to do. And you know I’m curious what your thoughts around this.

Alex Wagner: I just, I mean, look, I think he’s completely unfit for office. I think anybody that issues, like, genocidal calls standing next to a fucking Easter bunny, like, do you remember that optic? Like, this person is unhinged. I mean it really, I thought that Truth Social was indicative of someone who really has lost control of his faculties. And I don’t mean that in like, he’s shitting his pants, that may be happening too, I don’t even know. But just he has no control anymore. And any bit of reporting about his stewardship of this shows someone who has no idea what the fuck he’s doing in the sit room. That is all hugely terrifying to me as an American citizen, and it should be alarming to everybody. But I do worry about, you know, if Democrats go back to impeachment or the 25th Amendment, I worry that there’s some part of the, and I don’t know enough about where the electorate’s feelings are on all of this. And I think it’ll take some time to settle, and the gas prices are sure to inform it. But, I don’t know where, you know, sort of Trump-leaning independents are on that, and whether that overplays the Democrats, I think, very strong hand heading into November, right? I believe that the moral thing to do would be to get this guy out of office, but in terms of a piece of political strategy, to me, it seems like it can’t just be Democrats leading the charge. The only thing that matters is when Democrats reach way across the aisle and pull in some of Trump’s own base. On this, they may have an assist because there are people. You know, that are prominent voices from MAGA world who have been very skeptical of the president launching this war of choice. Let’s just play the sound this week from Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who did not mince words.

[clip of Tucker Carlson]: This is a mockery, not just of Islam, it’s a mocker of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the f-word on Easter morning, promising the murder of civilians and then saying, praise be to Allah, without explaining any of it, you are mocking me and every other Christian because we’re Christians. Oh, I get it. We can’t support that.

[clip of Megyn Kelly]: I mean, I don’t know about you, but I am sick of this shit. I’m just, I’m sick of it. Can’t he just behave like a normal human? I mean honestly, like the president at 3D chess, just shut up. Fucking shut up about that shit. You don’t threaten to wipe out an entire civilization. We’re talking about civilians, just casually in a social media post.

Alex Wagner: Okay, what’s interesting to me about both Tucker and Megyn in those clips is we’re beyond the, you betrayed us by engaging in foreign intervention and launching, you know, military adventurism overseas. That was a betrayal of core MAGA principles. This is something else. This is, you’re an asshole. You are actively insulting me and my beliefs, and also fuck off. Enough with that shit. To me, it seems way more emotionally charged and way deeper than just a sort of foreign policy betrayal. What do you think?

Brian Tyler Cohen: Look. These people have all hitched their wagon to Trump’s and so when he does these increasingly unpopular things like it weighs on them. Their job is to defend him like that. That’s what that’s that’s their brand. That’s the entire Republican Party’s brand like they’ve they’ve all they’re all just on the Trump train. That’ what the GOP is. It’s whatever it’s it’s blindly defending whatever errant synapse fires in his brain and words fall out of his mouth. That becomes gospel on the right. And their job is to is to blindly defer to him every step of the way. And so, you know, that’s proving increasingly like when he when he’s on the campaign trail, sure, you can say whatever you want, but it becomes increasingly difficult when you actually are in a position of power. And all you do is show contempt for your own voters and your own supporters by doing the polar opposite of everything that you campaigned on. And then like engaging in just this batshit crazy behavior, like calling for the, you know, the, the annihilation of 93 million people in, in Iran. And so of course, like it, it’s that it’s that his words are making their lives more difficult. And they don’t want that they like that glide path is gone. Again, when he’s in the minority or on the campaign trail, it’s easy because the sky’s the limit. But now when he actually has power, it reflects poorly off of them because these people are just mini-MAGAs, like that’s all they are.

Alex Wagner: Do you think it’s lasting? I feel like this is, I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t want to be the person that’s always like, oh, this is when he’s losing the base. But I do think, especially Tucker, who’s been very much riding that, like the Iran war is going to be the end of your presidency, this feels significant. Although, how many times have I said that? And then they always go back to daddy. I don’t know. I just like it’s once burned, twice shy. But I don’t know the language. Even Megyn Kelly saying enough with that shit. Just shut the fuck up. That seems new.

Brian Tyler Cohen: It’s what I worry about too. And like you look at the potency of even the ICE killings like the killing of Renée Good and Alex Pretti and it feels like a lifetime away. And at the time it felt like, okay, this is so, how could people forget about this? But the news cycle moved so quickly that, you know, the onus is on the pro-democracy ecosystem to remind people of that. But then you’ve, you now, 10 things have happened since then. I mean, we’ve been on the brink of nuclear war since then So will it last I don’t I don’t know in this in this with the speed with which this new cycle moves I don’t know if anything has staying power, but but but what is instructive is looking at his polling and that’s gone.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen: The trajectory of all this polling is going down. And so he is losing people on the way that he’s not getting back. And so you have to imagine that for people who he’s lost on the ICE killings, maybe some people have reverted back to the mean and they’ve come home, come home to daddy, as you say [laughs], but like, there are gonna be some people who haven’t. And then when you have this nuclear war stuff, there are going to be some who are gonna be like, that’s it, I’m done, but they’ll come home but like some people won’t. And as it relates to raising gas prices or affordable goods or getting their Medicaid or Medicare cut that they relied on or their food assistance that they rely on because Republicans rely on those programs as well. Like he will lose people every step of the way and there will be attrition that won’t return. And you’re seeing these numbers, you know, play out in all of the polling. And so I don’t know what people are going to be thinking about.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Know, come November of 2026. I don’t know what the world is going to look like come November of 2026. I remember sitting sitting at my desk in January of 2020. And you know, if you had told me within six weeks, the whole world would be masked up and you know trying not to die of I would never have believed you but you know, but there we were um so I don’t know what it’s gonna look like a few months from now but I do know what the polling looks like and and what the independence especially look like and that is that he’s losing people every day that republicans are losing people every day that we’re seeing elections in places like Texas and Oklahoma. Mar-a-Lago is now represented—

Alex Wagner: Wisconsin.

Brian Tyler Cohen: —by a Democrat in the legislature. Wisconsin, you know, Wisconsin was a state where if only Hillary Clinton had gone to Wisconsin, the whole course of history might have changed. Democrats have won every state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin since 2017. Like that state is as close to, you know, solidly blue as you can hope from a Rust Belt state. And so, you know these elections don’t lie, the polling in large part doesn’t lie, the trend lines that we’re seeing don’t lie and so you know in terms of staying power. There’s no guarantees, but all of these numbers tell a pretty clear and consistent story.

Alex Wagner: You’re so right about like, there’s always going to be some dutiful children who return to daddy’s warm embrace, but what he’s doing—

Brian Tyler Cohen: Which by the way, I think Megyn Kelly falls into that category too.

Alex Wagner: Well, I think probably not because she actually finds herself a line, but because it’s profitable for Megyn Kelly, right? Like it’s not that it’s, not that lucrative to just be against Trump. But he is exfoliating some part of his coalition with each one of these things. And if gas prices remain high, there are going to be people that just give up on him and don’t go back to him. Whether they vote for Democrats or just stay home in November, either way, that’s a loss for Trump and a gain for Democrats. The other piece of it that we haven’t talked about, the threat of anti-Semitism is strong in MAGA and the sort of like the crimes of Israel and the war of Gaza and the death of the innocents, children who were slaughtered, all of this weighs heavily on the mind of the American public. And you look at the role that Israel is playing in all of us. The reporting from this New York Times piece by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman just shows the way in which Netanyahu led Trump by the nose in the sit room. To get involved in this war in Iran despite, I won’t say end treaties, but despite intelligence from his own advisors saying, I don’t know, man, Israel’s plan seems pretty far-fetched. And the Times piece concludes something that I think is really essential to understand as we talk about Trump’s control of his base and the degree to which he actually gives a shit about America First principles. Here’s what the Times reports. Distrusted as Mr. Netanyahu was by many of President Trump’s advisors. Netanyahu’s view of the situation in Iran was far closer to Mr. Trump’s opinion than the anti-interventionists on the Trump team or in the broader America First movement like to admit. This had been true for many years. Basically, the Times is saying, anybody who really thought the president was America First is lying to themselves. This guy loves decapitating dictators either physically or, you know, metaphorically. And he’s all about going out there and showing American might overseas. I feel like that’s a massive betrayal, right? And to be done at the hands of Israel is a problem for, I think, a lot of MAGA world. Do you think that Trump’s given up the ghost on that one?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think absolutely. You know, this has been a recurring theme as far as Trump is concerned. He campaigns in poetry, but when it comes time to govern, it’s always the polar opposite. If you think back to his first term, this guy promised an infrastructure law that never materialized. He promised a health care plan that was cheaper and more comprehensive that never materialized. A middle-class tax cut that never materialized. A jobs boom that never materialized. A manufacturing renaissance that never materialized. All he did, his only major legislative achievement was a tax cut that disproportionately benefited millionaires and millionaires. That’s it. And then you look at this term and he was like the king of populism, right? He promised cheaper rent and groceries and housing and eggs. Like this guy promised. He was so focused on on on what regular people were feeling that he he got so granular as to talk about the price of an egg.

Alex Wagner: I know.

Brian Tyler Cohen: And then he gets into office and immediately launches a trade war that sends the cost of everything surging so forget about your egg being two cents more expensive now everything is more expensive cuts Medicaid cuts Medicare cuts food assistance inflation is is expected to hit 5.2 percent which is double almost double the rate when Biden left office. Joe Biden, like the biggest villain when it comes to inflation in American history, Trump is expected to be double what the rate was when Biden left the office. And so everything that he does is him giving up the ghost. Everything that he does, is him betraying the con that he unleashed upon Americans when he promised one thing with no intention of doing it. I think that’s the worst part. It’s one thing to—

Alex Wagner: Am I naive though, like the let’s stop fighting wars in the Middle East thing, because Trump was out on that, like early in the 2010s, he was the one saying like, this is a mistake that I thought maybe, maybe he actually kind of believed it. But what has been revealed to me is like, the man actually believes nothing. He really truly has no moral compass. Like this is maybe the one thing I would have given him a little credit on. And like he’s completely betrayed it and clearly embraces the idea of foreign intervention.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, I think, look, I kind of agree with you where, like, if you had asked me, and granted, I’m a terrible predictor of the future. If I wasn’t.

Alex Wagner: Yeah as am I.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Then, you know, Hillary Clinton would be president and Kamala Harris would be president. Like, I was convinced that both of those things were going to happen. So I would have put my money on Trump not engaging in foreign adventurism as well. But like, but like I said at the top, I mean, I do think that the lore of bolstering his legacy was just so great. And he’s such a malignant narcissist that when he saw how easy it was in Venezuela, he’s like, fuck it, like, I’m just gonna do me. I’m gonna make sure that I can submit my place in the history books. And like, it’s not just gonna be my ballroom and my arch and the Trump Kennedy Center. I’m going to make sure that the whole world reflects how my hands played a role in this. And I’m go make sure South America feels it. I’m to make the Middle East feels it that Cuba and Canada and Panama and whatever other country I can get my hands on, that the whole world is going to look and remember my name when I’m gone. I mean, this is Donald Trump’s ego on full display.

Alex Wagner: Malignant narcissism always trumps any kind of priority or promise when it comes to Trump. More of my conversation with BTC in just a minute.

Alex Wagner: I have to say, I expect nothing from the Republican Party, really nothing, but even I was surprised that someone like Joni Ernst, who sits in the Senate, which by constitution is one of the two congressional bodies authorized to take this country to war, someone like Joni Ernst who is retiring from the Senate who represents a state that is getting absolutely fucked by these fuel shortages and energy crisis that’s happening around the globe, but is affecting the agricultural sector, which is important to her home state of Iowa. Even someone like that could not say a critical word about Donald Trump and his insanity. This is what she said. She called the Armageddon talk, the talk of extinguishing the civilization of Iran. She called that him venting his frustration and called his threats leverage. I don’t know, Brian. When I hear this stuff, I’m like, OK, they’re never ever going to take on their responsibilities. Even the ones who are retiring are like kind of closed mouth. And I think about optimistically what happens if Democrats control both houses of Congress, the Senate and the House. And to me, honestly, this kind of stuff makes the case for getting rid of the filibuster. It’s like, okay, if you guys aren’t going to make any votes, we’re going to start taking some fucking votes. And like sometimes they’re going to be tough votes, and sometimes they are going to be revelatory votes that make you, Joni Ernst, take an active stance in voting for a war that’s fucking your own state over that you know is wildly irresponsible at best. But it is time for these Republicans to be held accountable. And it’s time for Congress to do some legislating. I’ve long been an institutionalist. But moments like this make me feel like, fuck it, get rid of it. Like, get of it! It’s time for the legislative branch to have some balls again. Sorry, not that you only can be powerful with balls.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think, look, I’ve been God knows how long I’ve been advocating for the elimination of the filibuster. But I think you’re right. And and and I want I want to I want to point out like this, I always make a point to point out that when Trump is doing all of the stuff that he’s doing, this is not possible without a compliant Republican Party. Like they own this just as much as he does. And I think. Perhaps deservedly Trump gets all of the credit slash blame for everything he does, but none of this happens in Iran unless the Republicans failed to lift a finger when it came to his threats against Venezuela, when it comes to his threats against Panama, his threats, against Canada, like our neighbor Canada, our closest ally Canada, his threats against Europe. Like, all this does is create or establish a precedent where Trump can do whatever he wants, that he knows that he is not bound by an impotent legislative branch of which Republicans control both chambers. And so, like, when they go out on the campaign trail, and, you know, it may not be Joni Ernst because she’s running for reelection, but like it reflects on her party, and the rest of these members and senators who are running for re-election, it needs to be clear that none of Trump’s behavior would be possible without, with just how like compliant these people are. And so I hope that, and by the way, Americans are recognizing that, and they’re seeing it, which is why they’re getting punished at the ballot box everywhere. Like these people have made kind of this devil’s bargain that because God forbid, they put themselves in a situation where they’re on the receiving end of Trump’s ire or a mean tweet.

Alex Wagner: Or primary challenge.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Or primary challenge, they’ve decided to allow him to do whatever he wants. But now that means they own this. And so they own what’s happening in Iran. And they can pretend like they don’t see the tweets. They can play that game that we’ve been seeing for the last decade until they’re blue in the face. But, you know, at this point, everybody’s got Twitter on their phone, right? Like everybody gets push notifications. We are not so dumb and ignorant as to think that these people have no idea what’s happened with Trump and that that that, you know, he is a completely separate entity from them. These Republicans in the House, these Republicans in the Senate own this just as much as Trump does. And so, you know, they own the consequences as well.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s the huge question is how Democrats use this moment to really implicate for the next, however many months it is until November, I’m like six, I have no amount of time as a dimension. But like, however long it takes, they, as you say, need to own this. This is not just the Mad King, but it’s his pliant like court that has allowed this.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Well, in a lot of these instances, the Republicans have the ability to vote on these standalone bills where they can undo what Trump is trying to do.

Alex Wagner: Yes.

Brian Tyler Cohen: The war authorization, for example, I know Fetterman voted against it. He was the only Democrat who voted against, and Fetterman deserves criticism for that. But every Republican except for Thomas Massie also voted the other way. And so I think like, you know, the TSA bill, for example, when there were those long lines at airports, Democrats put forward 11 bills to fund TSA and stand in a clean standalone bill. The Republicans knew what Trump’s position was. Again, they don’t want to be on the receiving end of a mean tweet, God forbid. And so, you know, they all voted against it. And so even in these opportunities where they can buck Trump and give themselves, buy themselves a little bit of goodwill to go to voters, even then they don’t have the balls to or the spine to take the opportunities that they have right in front of them.

Alex Wagner: Totally. I mean, it’s so, it is so feckless. It’s so fear-based and it’s a betrayal of actually what the founders envisioned when they had the separation of powers. You keep mentioning Cuba in terms of Trump’s portfolio of countries he’d like to, you know, see regime change in. Do you think that the whole humiliation of this, because it has been humiliation, no matter what Trump and his advisors say, makes him more cautious about invading Cuba, or do you think the fact that he has been? So clearly owned by this process that his ego has been so bruised makes him more likely to try and get a W up on the board in the form of, I don’t know, changing the Cuban government to his own whims.

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think it’s probably the latter. [scoffs] I think if Trump has shown us anything, it’s that he is always led by his ego. And if he feels like it’s been bruised, he’s gonna redouble his efforts to make sure that he can gain the upper hand. And I think frankly, he’s going to view Cuba as an easier opponent than Iran, and I think that’s correct. So he’ll probably, he probably will, unless proxies enter into a conflict and God knows what can happen, but but yeah, I mean, look, if if if the last god, it feels like 10 years, but year and a half has shown us anything, it’s that Trump will always be led by his ego. I mean we just talked about the fact that this guy ran a whole ass campaign on not engaging in foreign adventurism. And that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Alex Wagner: He ran a whole ass campaign on it. [laughter]

Brian Tyler Cohen: So like, you know, again, but I think he’s doing it because because, you know, his his desire to build up his legacy and and bolster his ego is just so strong. And so when it comes to Cuba, I think he’s going to feel bruised in the aftermath of of the Iran situation. I think he’s already hurt in the after the Iran situation and he needs to figure out how to get back, how to get the upper hands back. And I think his, you know, is next to next to the next shiny object in his sights is going to be Cuba.

Alex Wagner: Lord. Here’s my silver lining, this has all been great if you own a Rivian. Or an electric car, right? Like you needed a better argument that maybe we shouldn’t be chasing reserves of decaying phytoplankton from like the Mesozoic era that created petroleum wells deep below the surface of the earth. This is a great fucking argument that maybe you should be powering your cities and your car and your infrastructure by renewable resources. Truly, I had to give up my Rivian in the divorce. It was amicable, it also is too big of a car for me. But man, I wish I had that car right now, Brian.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, I can say that I drive an EV and I do it in California, which has been hit especially hard, has always been hit, especially hard by high gas prices. I don’t know what gas costs in Los Angeles right now, which is such a nice feeling. It’s I’m I’m, I’m. I recognize my privilege and being able to say that, but I don’t know what what a gallon of gas costs in LA and it and I want that for everyone. And frankly, you know, these EVs are getting more and more affordable, which is great. I’m for anything that will accelerate. Accelerate the transition from combustion engines to electric vehicles.

Alex Wagner: I mean, if I’m the Chinese, I’m looking out and saying, you idiots. You idiots. Trump, you just made the best, most compelling argument for us to get off this dirty, dangerous fuel. You’re welcome. What an asshole. Just in closing, Brian, what an asshole!

Brian Tyler Cohen: That’s it seems like that that’s like an evergreen closing what an asshole is is the way I think we can close all of these.

Alex Wagner: Never goes out of style. Just like you, my friend. It is such a joy and a pleasure and an honor to have you on our little podcast we call home. Brian Tyler Cohen, thank you for your time and your wisdom and giving us that highly desired E explicit rating on this podcast.

Brian Tyler Cohen: I’m sorry about that, but I appreciate you taking the time to— [both speaking]

Alex Wagner:  I would have given it to you. It’s not a family show. I mean, it is, but you know. Thanks, Brian. [music plays] That is our show for this week. Please do not forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. And if you’re not sick of hearing from me yet, take a look at my Substack, How the Hell with Alex Wagner. Last but not least, if you have been impacted directly by the Trump administration or its policies, please send us an email or a one minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. A huge and sincere thanks to everyone who has written in already. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.