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TRANSCRIPT
Jane Coaston: It’s Thursday, March 12th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that says if you go to a taco place on vacation, in New York or anywhere else, and have a salsa that’s too spicy for you, you simply say, that’s too spicy for me. You do not, as a German tourist did earlier this year, sue for damages, especially since the judge might make fun of you in his opinion siding with the restaurant. Quote, “a quick Google search for Mexican food, salsa, or even Los Tacos reviews likely would have revealed that salsa can be quite spicy,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Dale Ho, with a level of sarcasm even spicier than the sauce this all started with. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump rebrands the war as an excursion, and tries to convince everyone that the economy is doing just fine. And newly released deposition videos show that a former DOGE bro has no idea what DEI is. Who would have thought? But let’s start with the war in Iran.
[clip of President Donald Trump] And as we take decisive action to stop the threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran with Operation Epic Fury, [audience cheers] is that a great name? Well it’s only good if you win you know you can only do and we’ve won let me say we’ve won.
Jane Coaston: Trump had his own, President George W. Bush, mission accomplished moment on Wednesday, telling a crowd at a rally in Kentucky that the war with Iran is over, before adding, quote, “we don’t want to leave early, we want to finish the job.” So the war with Iran is not, in fact, over. Not for the U.S. and not for the bulk of the Middle Eastern region which has been thrust into the conflict. The war has already killed more than 1,000 Iranians, including 175 people killed at an elementary school on February 28th. According to multiple news outlets, a preliminary report from the US military says the US was at fault for that strike, which contradicts Donald Trump, who said Saturday that Iran was at fault of the attack, and then Wednesday said, quote, “I don’t know about it” when a reporter asked him about the investigation, which seems to be a part of a larger pattern. We are not getting any good information about this war from the Trump administration. From why we’re in this conflict in the first place, to what our goals are, to when this war will end, there’s a fog around everything. So, to find out what members of Congress are doing to reckon with the informational soup Trump has created, I spoke to Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. Senator Kelly, welcome to What a Day!
Mark Kelly: It’s good to be here. Thank you for having me on again.
Jane Coaston: On Wednesday, you and nearly all of your Democratic colleagues in the Senate wrote a letter to the Department of Defense asking for answers about a strike that hit an elementary school in Iran. As a former leader in the military, what is the first thing you want to know?
Mark Kelly: Well, I want to know how this happened so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s the really critical piece of this. And I think we’re living in a time where the information we get from the government, from the administration is not accurate. The president’s initial response to this was, well, it might’ve been an Iranian Tomahawk missile. Well, that’s not a thing. That’s a ridiculous thing for a president to say. He should know better. But he threw that out there as a way to try to deflect blame. The thing about us as the United States, I mean, we’ve got to be better than other countries. And that includes accepting responsibility when things go wrong. And we need to change whatever process broke, whether it was a targeting process or an intelligence gathering process, because we can’t have this happen again.
Jane Coaston: I wanted to actually ask a little bit about the information environment that you’re in because a good friend of mine, he has a sub stack where he counted that there were 17 different explanations for why we got into this war that we have gotten from Trump administration officials. How difficult has it been for you as a senator to get information about the objectives and progress of this war.
Mark Kelly: Well, I’ve got to get with your friend because my list is 13, and we’re, what, a little over a week into this and, you know, this started out about nuclear weapons and regime change and ballistic missiles and the Navy and then an imminent threat in the future and then oil and, you know I had a feeling it was on the list. I mean, I’m on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committee, so I have access to you know the most up-to-date, real information, often classified, and it’s hard for me. The information environment is really complex, and our adversaries are using it against us. Russia, China, Iran, and uh the North Koreans do it too. And they use social media to try to divide us as a country and feed us false information. So I try to go to trusted sources, you know, the committee work, which people don’t generally have access to, but, you know trusted media outlets, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN and others and try to not believe everything I read on social media.
Jane Coaston: Speaking of the New York Times, I want to go back to that US strike on a school. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the military investigation into that strike, the preliminary findings show that the US committed the strike because of outdated data leading to a targeting error. How can Congress, how can you hold the Pentagon accountable for mistakes like this? Because as you say, we shouldn’t be doing this. This should have never happened, and this should never happen again.
Mark Kelly: Well, one of my big concerns is uh that there were a lot of strikes in a really short period of time and how much due diligence are the targetters and the intelligence officers doing before making a decision to hit a target. Um. You can’t take these things back. And we’ve got to be very, very careful about civilian casualties. You know, the Russians target civilians in Ukraine intentionally. The Iranians are targeting civilians in cities throughout the Middle East, Tel Aviv, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi and others. We don’t do that. But we also have to be very, very careful to make sure it doesn’t happen by accident. And this was obviously you know an accident. I don’t have any question about you know whether this was intentional. We just don’t do that. But we have to be incredibly careful, especially when you have a very high ops tempo. A lot of airplanes launching. You have a lot of weapons available. And there was a call that I saw was made public that they were looking for intelligence officers to, you know, move into the region because they were looking at so many targets. And then you start to take shortcuts. But I think the bigger problem here with this is, we’re talking specifically about an operation, but if we zoom out a little bit, you know, why are we in this war with Iran in the first place? You mentioned 17 reasons. I’m counting, you know, 13. President hasn’t given any kind of a very clear strategic goal and a plan and a timeline to do this. And when you don’t have those three things, I think it’s very easy to wind up in a conflict you know for months, if not years, and you’re like aimlessly stuck in it, and you have rising casualties on both sides. To what end? Like what are the American people getting out of this? So far from what I can tell, they’re getting higher gasoline prices. And we have a president focused on not the problems he said he was gonna try to solve, which is high costs, and also keeping us out of conflicts, right? Now we’re in one.
Jane Coaston: Earlier this week, you introduced a bill that would suspend the federal gas tax until October. In your view, is that enough to combat the higher costs Americans are seeing at the pump?
Mark Kelly: Well, before I get to the gas thing, let me also say that the cost for families, seven families across our country, the cost was the ultimate cost. They lost their lives. And we also have 140 injured service members out there. I don’t know the extent of their injuries. I’m sure some of them are very severe and they’re going to wind up with lifetime disabilities and that affects not only them, their families, their friends, we have children that are orphaned because of this. So the cost is the greatest cost anybody or any family can pay. On the cost of fuel, 20% of worldwide crude oil flows through those straits between Iran and Oman. You know even though most of that oil goes to Asia, it does result in higher prices even in the United States for gasoline. So my bill would suspend the federal gas tax through October. It’s 18.4 cents per gallon. It’s not a lot. Gasoline has gone up by more than that amount already. But when families are struggling, it’s one thing that we can do, you know, right now to try to give them some relief. So, you know hopefully we’ll get some bipartisan support and we can get that passed.
Jane Coaston: Something I think about a lot is that there’s that old saying that one of the challenges in war is that the enemy gets a say. You are a retired Navy captain. And I’m well aware and you’re well aware that America could say the war is over and Iran could say absolutely not. Can you actually put an end date on war as Trump keeps trying to do saying two weeks and four weeks, maybe six months? Like, it just doesn’t make any sense.
Mark Kelly: Yeah, I think he believes that when he decides it’s over, it’s over. But that doesn’t mean the Iranians stop striking targets in the region and cease in committing terrorist acts. And the Straits of Hormuz are wide open, despite the fact that there’s some mines, you know, been laid. So you’re right, they do get a say and usually these things end by some kind of negotiated settlement. Now remember where we were before it started, we were in a negotiation. That was ended by the administration, and within a day or so, combat operations started. You know my preference would have been to stay in this negotiation. We also, by the way, have a president who ripped up a nuclear deal that was keeping the enrichment low, and the Iranians weren’t racing towards a nuclear weapon. And my big worry now is, does the new Supreme Leader, who’s considered a bigger hardliner than his dad, does he, at some point, try to race to get a nuclear weapon? That would be catastrophic if the Iranians were able to build a functioning weapon. And we didn’t have to be here. And now we’re at war with Iran.
Jane Coaston: At the same time that all of this is happening, the Department of Homeland Security is still closed and soon senators will be asked to confirm a new department head. Do you have any concerns about DHS not operating right now, especially as it should be? And are there any meaningful proposals to reopen DHS right now?
Mark Kelly: Well there’s, you know we’re talking about a couple of different things.
Jane Coaston: Right.
Mark Kelly: So ICE is part of DHS, but Coast Guard and FEMA are as well. And it’s important that the Coast Guard and FEMA get funded. With regards to ICE, having Kristi Noem fired for doing a poor job, that’s a step. There are other individuals that need to be fired. And then somebody needs to overhaul this agency from the top up or you know the bottom down, doesn’t matter to me, but it needs a complete overhaul. And we made a proposal on what we thought should be changed. It was rejected by this administration and now the Republicans are politicizing this entire thing. What they could do is pass our plans to fund FEMA, fund the Coast Guard, and then work with us to come up with a proposal to make some changes at ICE so people’s constitutional rights aren’t violated and so we don’t wind up with more dead Americans in the streets at the hands of federal agents. We can’t have this and we can’t have people’s being beaten up and maced for no reason and you know their homes being entered without warrants. So we’re trying to overhaul the agency and it’s pretty simple what we’re asking for. And uh at the same time, we can fund TSA, we can fund Coast Guard, we could fund FEMA.
Jane Coaston: Senator Kelly, as always, thank you so much for joining me.
Mark Kelly: Appreciate you having me on.
Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Arizona Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly. We have more important news on the way, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today.
[sung] Headlines.
[clip of President Donald Trump] So we had to take an excursion, but it’s doing well. The market’s holding up well. I think it would be hit a little bit, but uh we were hit probably less than I thought, and we’ll be back on track in a pretty short while. Prices are coming down very substantially. Oil will be coming down. That’s just a uh just a matter of war.
Jane Coaston: President Donald Trump tried to downplay economic troubles outside of a pharmaceutical company facility in Ohio on Wednesday. Apparently it’s no longer a war, it’s an excursion. But if the economy isn’t looking great, well, that’s a matter of war. So, economy, good, excursion economy, bad, war. Here with me to talk through Trump’s affordability tour that isn’t and all the news of the day is What a Day newsletter writer, Matt Berg. Hey Matt!
Matt Berg: Hey Jane!
Jane Coaston: So Matt, Trump stopped at that pharmaceutical company facility in Redding, which is a suburb of Cincinnati, sort of, because all of Cincinnati in many places is a giant suburb. That’s where I’m from. He also went to a packing facility in Hebron, Kentucky, part of Republican Representative Thomas Massie’s district. Thomas Massie, who, as you know, Trump hates beyond all things.
Matt Berg: So Trump doesn’t like Thomas Massie for a lot of reasons. And one of them is because he is one of the lawmakers who has spearheaded the Epstein files release. Trump recently endorsed Massey’s opponent, Ed Galerion, a former Navy SEAL in the primary. And Trump posted this week on Truth Social that Massie is, quote, “the Republican party’s worst congressman ever.” Trump was probably grumpy, though, because of all the bad economic news that’s been coming out. There’s a recent report that employers cut 92,000 jobs in February. It’s unexpectedly high, and it also proves that Trump’s economy is not the greatest ever, even though he is always saying that. Inflation also didn’t change much between January and February, according to fresh data. But that was before the start of the war. We could see prices go even higher in the coming weeks, and it could take a long time before they come down.
Jane Coaston: Yeah, and uh to that note, on Wednesday, Trump said that the U.S. will tap the strategic petroleum reserve. Earlier on Wednesday the International Energy Agency announced members will release more than 400 million barrels from strategic reserves. Uh. This is all notable because, I mean, one, oil reserves, but also, remember, Trump said that we won the war and everything’s great and fine. But uh let’s move on to one of my um favorite subjects, uh former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who made a ad that in which she got to ride horses with Buffalo, which respect. Uh. The New York Post reported that last year, Corey Lewandowski, her special aide/alleged paramour, told one of the paper’s sources, quote, “I’m not worried. I do whatever the fuck I want. DJT will pardon me.” Now, Lewandowski denied saying this, even though it 100% sounds like something he would say. He also added that I haven’t done anything that would need to be pardoned for, which is um an interesting addition to make. But uh what’s Kristi Noem been doing since she got fired? Which was, again, really funny and cool.
Matt Berg: I’ve been wondering the same thing, and so I thought I would ask people who would know what Noem is up to, since her title is now, quote, “special envoy for the shield of Americas.” If that sounds made up, it’s because it is. Trump literally made that up. Earlier this week, Noem had a first public appearance as the special envoy, saying that she would keep our adversaries at bay in the Western Hemisphere, which is very vague.
Jane Coaston: That’s like, okay, you’re gonna let your golden retriever sit on the porch and just see, you know, keep adversaries at bay. But not with Kristi Noem because she hates dogs.
Matt Berg: And so that is exactly the vibe that I got from a lot of people on the Hill. An aide to the Senate Homeland Security Committee told me that they’ve received no information about her job aside from public reports since Friday. And a long time Latin American expert told me that this is quote, “a golden parachute job” in that he quote, “doubts she has any idea what she’s even doing.”
Jane Coaston: In other news, humanities groups, including the American Historical Association, are suing the National Endowment for the Humanities over the process DOGE used to cut grant funding. Over $100 million in NEH grants were canceled by DOGE. The reason I bring this up, Matt, is because depositions from the discovery process were recently released, and DOGE staffer Justin Fox oversaw the use of chatGPT to terminate NEH grants. Let’s let’s hear from him.
[clip of unnamed speaker] How do you interpret DEI?
[clip of Justin Fox] [sigh] There was, the EO explicitly laid out the details. I don’t remember it off the top of my head.
[clip of unnamed speaker] It’s okay, I’m asking for your understanding of it.
[clip of Justin Fox] Yeah, my understanding was exactly what was written in the EO.
[clip of unnamed speaker] Okay. So can you?
[clip of Justin Fox] I don’t remember what was in the EO.
[clip of unnamed speaker] Okay. So right now, do you have an understanding of what DEI is?
[clip of Justin Fox] Yeah.
[clip of unnamed speaker] Okay, so what’s your understanding as you sit here today in this deposition?
[clip of Justin Fox] Um. Well, it was exactly what was written in the EO.
Jane Coaston: Nobody wants to be deposed like nobody does but I think we should make this person be deposed like once a day This is this is beautiful and Matt I think that you you learn some um interesting information watching this deposition.
Matt Berg: Yeah, so one reason that he may have been so uncomfortable in this is that he said ChatGPT was correct to flag that a documentary about violence against women during the holocaust should have been flagged as DEI. He also justified that by saying the documentary was quote, “specifically focused on Jewish cultures.” And quote, “voices of the females in that culture,” which is, you know spoken like a true MAGA pill tech bro
Jane Coaston: Uh, general rule, if you say the phrase, the females, a meteor should just come from the sky. In other news, having to do with people I don’t like, the New York Times reported this week that Attorney General Pam Bondi moved from her D.C. Apartment to a military base in the D. C. area due to threats, both from cartels post Maduro abduction and critics of her handling of the Epstein files, which like, that sounds very scary and very hard. But uh there are other Trump officials, I think you’ve mentioned, who may have had to move to military facilities.
Matt Berg: Yes, those Trump officials include none other than Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem, which sounds like the opposite of Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. Sounds like the last place I want to be.
Jane Coaston: Yeah uh, in my imagination, they all live in one neighborhood, and that’s the worst place in the entire world. Do not ride your bike through that neighborhood. Don’t do it. Matt, thanks for hanging out and talking about the news with me.
Matt Berg: Thanks for having me.
Jane Coaston: And that’s the news. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Double check that Secretary of War/little boy Pete Hegseth always looks hot in photos. And tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how according to the Washington Post, the Defense Department has barred photographers from briefings for the Iran War because their photographs of Hegseth were, quote, “unflattering” like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and look I get it. If you have to give a briefing on a war of choice that has risked the lives of thousands of people and the entire global economy, the least you can do is ensure all of the photos make you look sexy. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Sean Allee, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]
