Mick Mulvaney and Steve Ricchetti dissect the Trump administration's internal dissent versus Biden's stability, criticizing Trump's erratic Iran address and NATO threats while debating the feasibility of diplomacy without regime change. They analyze the political fallout of aggressive defense spending cuts, the Supreme Court birthright citizenship case, and shifting midterm dynamics driven by ICE tactics and redistricting. Ultimately, the episode warns that prioritizing war over social programs risks economic security and electoral defeat, urging bipartisan solutions like the Fertilizer Transparency Act to mitigate conflict-driven costs for American farmers. [Automatically generated summary]
where we look to bridge the divide in American politics.
I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief, and joining me now on either side of the desk, two guests who have agreed to keep the conversation civil, even when they disagree.
Mick Mulvaney, former White House Chief of Staff during the first Trump administration.
He's also a former South Carolina Republican congressman.
And Steve Roschetti, former counselor to President Joe Biden and chairman of Biden 2020.
Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being here with me today.
I want to start with both of your experiences in the White House.
I think, you know, a lot of people look at that building, hear the reporting coming out of it, but you two have been there behind closed doors in those moments.
What surprised you the most once you stepped into your respective roles?
unidentified
Well, honestly, I'd done it before.
I'd worked for President Clinton for many years before I went to President Biden, and I was with him when he was vice president.
And so I don't know if we were surprise walking in the door when we started in 2021.
I do know the times were extraordinarily difficult.
Obviously, it was the experience that you lived through in 2019-2020, especially with COVID and the international pandemic, and learning to adjust and having to develop a strategy under those conditions was very, very difficult and unusual, and unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Just both the isolation of the year 2020, how we campaigned for the presidency, and just, again, developing a strategy for how to govern under those circumstances.
And I think if there's one primary difference that I see, Dasha, it's that in the first administration, I think Trump really went out of his way to find people who disagree with him and disagree with each other.
He hired me.
I never met him before.
He hired me, and I was and still consider myself to be one of the most fiscally conservative people in this town.
I mean, I'd cut the budget dramatically if you let me.
That's the reputation I had on the Hill, but he still hired me, even though that's not really, that's not his natural starting point, right?
That's not, he's not Rand Paul when it comes to fiscal policy.
Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, he hired, is a free trader.
Donald Trump is clearly not a free trader.
He hired John Bolton as a national security advisor.
Clearly has a lot of different opinions about what Trump does is how to see the world.
So he really was interested in surrounding himself with folks who disagreed with him.
I'm not sure it's like that now.
I'm sure there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes, if it's in a properly functioning White House.
Certainly the chief of staff is making sure that the president hears all sides of an argument, so I'm sure it's going on, but it's just not, it's not as prevalent.
I don't look at the cabinet secretaries and go, okay, I see how this person disagrees with the president on this, this, this, and this.
Steve, how much of an impact does a change or changes at the cabinet level have on an administration?
unidentified
I think it can be dramatic.
I mean, it depends on the personalities involved and the kind of individuals, their experience in the government, particularly their past experience attached to the agencies.
But it can change the direction.
It can change the entire texture of a conversation between a White House, a dialogue between the White House and its departments.
So it can be disruptive.
There are different presidents who have had quite a bit of churning inside their cabinet or inside their White Houses.
We did not in the Biden administration.
I think Marty Walsh was the only cabinet person who left during our time in office.
And we had a handful of folks who moved in and out of the White House and the senior staff.
That wasn't unusual.
Again, a year or two of time in the White House sometimes isn't that.
I think as you just described the adrenaline keeps you moving and keeps you going and the day-to-day pace of the work and the immediacy of the challenges right in front of you, I think the time goes by very, very quickly.
But you don't even realize it.
Obviously, families, you've got all the personal considerations attached to your life alongside of that.
And it goes by very, very quickly but takes a toll.
Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, but let's just start with some of the basics.
I mean, what factors do you all consider when recommending the President make a primetime address like that?
unidentified
Well, obviously, this one was probably pretty late, certainly in my view and my judgment.
It was late in delivering the rationale for why we were taking military action in Iran.
And even today, I think just the circumstances on the ground and in the air and what's going on there, his appeal to the country with respect to the impact and consequences of the decision to take this kind of military action, those are real.
People are feeling those every day.
The price at the pump with respect to gasoline and probably the downstream effect of things like the cost and effect on fertilizer, on farming, and even prescription drugs, medical supplies, those impacts are being felt nearly immediately.
And it's the kind of decision, and obviously with the number of troops committed and the danger represented, and even an official resigned with respect to the judgment about whether there was an imminent threat from Iran or not to the United States.
All of those things, I think the president certainly should have probably both gone to the Hill and gone to the country with a deeper explanation of the rationale for why we were doing this.
Yeah, the message was, I thought the message was, if this was the message, I think this is the right message.
There's going to be a cost here, okay?
But in the long term, you are going to be safer and the world is going to be a better place.
Iran is a really, really bad actor.
I think everybody agrees with that.
And I think if you asked previous presidents if they could do something to sort of change the arc of history in the Mideast, they would do it.
It's just never been able to do it in an acceptable risk-to-benefit sort of ratio.
And if the message is, yes, there's going to be pain, yes, there's going to be cost, but it's worth it, I think that's the right message.
But it's a message, to Steve's point, better delivered three or four weeks ago.
I don't necessarily agree with going to the Hill.
I've been on the Hill.
I've been in the building.
Congress is going to have their say because they need money.
And even though people, I don't even think Congress agrees with the War Powers Act says, but they do agree that the Defense Department needs to get money from Congress.
So they're going to have this debate.
I think I don't give the request went up last week or it's coming up this week for the $200 billion.
That's when Congress is going to have their say.
And either they'll send the money, which is an approval of the effort, or they won't, which is a disapproval.
So they will get their say.
So I'm not as concerned about going to the Hill, but going to the American people would have been very helpful earlier than last week.
I mean, it makes us very Trump to kind of say two potentially contradicting things at the same time and create a sort of Rorschach test for folks hearing what they want to hear, right?
And that part of the speech, some of that's right, that we don't get hardly any oil out of the straits of Hormuz, and the Europeans do, and to go to them and say they should be responsible for it.
It's not illogical.
The two things I struggle with during the speech was that it would be easy because it's not, and that would happen naturally.
I don't know what that means.
Here's what I do know.
If we leave with the straits closed and say, well, it's Europe's problem or it's China's problem, what that means is that we are putting our economic health into someone else's hands.
And let's say the Europeans say, okay, well, we'll give it a shot, and they fail.
That means we're looking at, what, $6 a gallon gasoline because the Europeans can't secure the Straits of Hormuz.
Oil is a world product, a global product, and even though we don't get hardly anything from there, it affects the oil there does affect the world price.
I cannot see Donald Trump, it would be one of the least make America great again, America first things ever, for him to leave and turn over control of our economy effectively to another country.
unidentified
So I don't see that happening.
It's the most troubling aspect of this from my point of view.
There's just no question that this could have been anticipated and should have been anticipated.
And the fact that they've had so much difficulty in guaranteeing passage of ships in the Strait is something they could do.
There's no question about it.
And whether we produce as much as we produce or not, the fact remains that the price of gas has gone up a buck in two and a half weeks.
And for many people in this country, that has a severe effect.
If you'd asked me six months ago, I'd say it would be leverage to try to same thing we did the first term.
It was to sort of, you know, maybe sort of hint that we would pull out if they don't start spending more money.
I thought that was the right play, and I think the Europeans did start spending more money.
And everybody sort of says now, well, we're glad Trump did that.
This is different, I think, Dasha.
I think he's angry.
I'm angry.
I understand why the Europeans would not want to commit, say, troops.
I don't understand not allowing our planes to land or allow the overflight rights.
That's a slap in the face.
To go to France and say, look, we'd like to fly over France on the way to the meetings because it's shorter and it's safer, for them to say no is an insult.
It really, really is.
And I think he's gone now from leverage to just outright anger.
And I don't think he's wrong.
It's going to be the big loser in all this, by the way, is Ukraine.
Because what little we're still doing for Ukraine is going to end.
Because you can't be the Europeans and say, oh, you know, U.S., we know that Ukraine is not a NATO country, but it sort of is, and we're all friends together, so why doesn't America help Ukraine?
And then when we're over in the Gulf saying, well, we know it's not a NATO country, but we really need the help, and they say no.
Listen, if Trump decides that he's going to pull every plug, we've pulled most of the support for Ukraine already.
I think it's a direct result of the Europeans' actions in the last month.
And again, it's an extraordinarily awkward way to basically ask for, and because he has already expressed that we need additional support to open up the straits, to talk with that kind of disrespect and belligerence to our closest allies in the world and our military partners again and again, including in Ukraine,
where European nations are picking up more and more of the responsibility, to say nothing also of how Putin has been advantaged through this process and what it's done for Russia, the price of oil.
That strikes me, and I don't understand it, is that there's some reporting, it seems like it's fairly well sourced, that Putin is actually helping the Iranians here.
And I just, I struggle with that because I'm like, that makes no sense to me.
And why the administration wouldn't come out and talk about that and condemn that, that has surprised me.
There was a law passed 2023, I think co-sponsored by Marco Rubio at the time, that no president can pull out of NATO.
So I don't think there's a risk of pulling out of NATO.
There's a practical application, which is without pulling out of NATO, if something happens in Poland, for example, it would be up to the president at that time to commit American troops.
Congress can declare war, but they can't prosecute a war.
So even if the president can't pull you out of NATO, a president could simply refuse to commit the military.
I think that's a look, it's more of a risk now than it was 30 days ago.
I think in the first term it was leveraged.
Now I think there's a real, real dispute at the heart of the relationship.
Meanwhile, there's reporting that the United States is getting some pressure from Gulf allies wanting Trump to push forward with this war.
Take a look at this AP headline.
Gulf allies privately make the case to Trump to keep fighting until Iran is decisively defeated.
Can you both weigh in on how pressure from allies factors in for a president's decision to?
unidentified
It certainly is an important factor, and particularly those countries are absorbing some of the impact of the Iranian response, this kind of asymmetrical, you know, their ability to use drone technology.
They still have missiles, although their military has been degraded.
So the consequences of this kind of decision in the region itself and that kind of consultation is just imperative to execute a strategy.
And again, I think that the president has grossly underperformed in that respect with respect to this crisis.
I think that our Gulf state allies probably carry more weight now than the Europeans.
One of the reasons I think you've seen Trump spend so much time, energy in the Gulf is that he perceives the world now as becoming sort of multipolar.
And we worry about the long-term relationship with Europe.
Where is Europe going culturally, et cetera?
So Trump is trying to figure out where we can have new friends.
And the Saudis and the Emiratis and Qataris are certainly high on that list.
So I think they're coming to the president and saying we need to stick out until we get true regime change.
That carries a lot more weight than France saying get out of the war.
I don't think it ultimately makes the decision in Trump's mind, but if you ask me what the weight is, I think the Saudis probably carry more weight right now than the Brits do.
Meanwhile, one of the challenges for the administration, the president has said time and again that they've killed all of the leaders, basically, or many of them.
And that poses an issue who actually has the ability to make a deal if Iran does want to make a deal.
I asked Press Secretary Caroline Levitt about that this week.
Watch.
The president has said that the administration is talking to a new and more reasonable regime.
How confident are you that they are legitimate and have enough grip on power?
Marco Rubio said earlier that he's not sure and it's not clear whether they will be in power.
So are you also talking to other factions?
As a president is trying to make a deal, how do you ensure that you're making a deal with people who can actually implement it?
Well, that's part of the ongoing process that's taking place and the ongoing negotiations.
Of course, anything that they say to us privately will be tested and we will ensure that they are being held accountable to their word.
And if they are not, the president has laid out the military consequences that the Iranian regime will see if they don't hold true to the words that we are hearing privately behind the scenes.
When the president says more reasonable, again, these folks are appearing more reasonable behind the scenes privately in these conversations than perhaps some of the previous leaders who are now no longer on planet Earth.
Again, I just think it's part of this back and forth day-to-day incoherence of the approach to this conflict and this challenge.
I don't understand why the president can't be clear with the American people, with the public, about what it is that he's trying to do and how it is that he wants to engage here with the new leaders of Iraq, of Iran.
It is clear that there hasn't been regime change.
The Supreme Leader is the son of the Supreme Leader Khomeini, who has been killed.
And I just think they're searching, he's scrambling for some more concrete sense of how it is that he can negotiate, come to a deal, and get out.
Because I think more than anything right now, I think you can feel the sense of a political urgency.
I'm certain that they're reading the polls and have a sense of what's going on in the country with respect to its support for what he's doing.
It's a fair question, but I don't think it should sort of strain credulity to think that the next leadership is going to be at least a little bit more reasonable than the previous one.
Here's why.
And the example I think here would be Venezuela.
If you were the president of a country or the vice president of a country and you now have your job because the American military came in and took your predecessor out of his bed in the middle of the night, you might be inclined to be a little bit more accommodating to the United States.
But keep in mind what Caroline, one of the things that Caroline said there that I think actually does carry a lot of weight and made some sense to me is the threat is still real.
You can say what you want to about Donald Trump's cultivated unpredictability.
He'll say one thing one minute and the exact opposite five minutes later.
But when he says, I'm going to bomb, you have to take that seriously if the Iranians.
You can't say, well, he's not going to do that because he's clearly done it.
So look, it is a difficult situation.
There's no question.
It would be a difficult situation under any circumstances, but especially in Iran to find somebody who could actually cut a deal.
I don't know How you solve that problem other than keep going through them until you can find going through leaders until you can find somebody that you can do.
unidentified
I think they're going to have to find other intermediaries.
And I think it's almost becoming clearer and clearer.
There just isn't a complete military solution to what he's looking to do here, and that he's going to have to engage in a diplomatic effort.
There could be a relation, Steve, to opening the straits.
You could do that purely militarily.
It's hard to do and takes a long time, but you're a long, long time.
unidentified
The commitment to that over time, and certainly the Iranians have demonstrated the capacity both with mining and with drones to disrupt shipping and I do want to pivot back for a moment before I let you guys go to domestic issues and kind of your area of expertise here, Mick.
The President delivered his annual budget request to Congress this week, as Bloomberg reports.
President Trump seeks to dramatically boost defense spending while continuing to downsize domestic agencies.
Trump could also face resistance from within his own party over envisioned cuts to health and science agencies that Congress rejected last year on a bipartisan basis.
Democrats have made affordability the watchword of their campaign to retake one or both houses of Congress in November and are likely to use Trump's budget proposal to highlight Republican cuts to health and safety net programs.
Mick, you serve as OMB director.
Any insight on how these decisions are made and how Congress typically responds?
Same way presidents always handle it, which is they watch, they sit back and they watch Congress do it and then they just figure out if they're going to veto it or not.
Congress doesn't pay much attention to the president's budget, regardless of what party's in charge on what end of Pennsylvania.
Well, given what the president is asking for from Congress, do Democrats have an opening here to use it to their advantage politically?
unidentified
Absolutely they do.
It's just an extraordinary request, an extraordinary amount of money for that purpose.
I think that there's clearly in the public's mind many, many other priorities, health care, education, so many of the things, transportation, infrastructure, the things that they live by every day of their lives.
That $1.5 trillion marker isn't a hint as to where Trump is going to try and take the debate for the midterms to make it a national security issue, try to move away from it.
unidentified
It's a very interesting strategy for an America First MAGA movement leader, but it could be exactly the same thing.
All right, let's turn now to this week's C-SPAN Flashback, where we dig deep into the video archives to show you a moment in political history that's eerily similar to what's happening today.
As the Supreme Court considers President Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship, I want to take you back to 1993, when then-Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid gave a speech calling for immigration reform and discussed the policy of automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.
Take a listen.
unidentified
If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant?
No sane country would do that, right?
Guess again.
If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides.
And that's a lot of services.
Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense, country, county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?
Flash forward to today, the Supreme Court justices just heard oral arguments this week over President Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
The president does not want it to apply to babies born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.
To discuss this case and other top political stories of the week, I'm joined on either side of the desk by two former lawmakers, former Virginia Republican Congressman Tom Davis and former New York Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney.
He's also the former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Thank you both so much for being here.
In addition to those titles, you're also both the former NRCC chair and the former DripleC chairs.
Let's start with that and just how different the politics are now than they were when you both held those roles.
unidentified
Well, we don't have as many Republicans as good as Tom Davis, for one thing.
Let's talk about the clip we just played and the subject of birthright citizenship.
You know, the Supreme Court heard those arguments this week.
The president attended in person, which was a historic first.
How is this case and the issue of immigration going to impact the midterms?
I want to start with you, Congressman, because immigration was such a strong issue for the president, but then we had so much fallout from these ICE raids, from what happened in Minneapolis.
They've now sort of scaled back, at least optically, and changed leadership over at DHS.
But now Trump is leaning really hard into this birthright citizenship case.
Where does this all net out for a Republicans?
unidentified
Well, it's like everything else.
Republicans won that issue and they solved the issue at the border.
That's what people elect him to do.
Now enforcing it, getting into this thing, it's more complicated.
So you solve one problem and you've created other problems.
It's kind of moved the impetus, at least right now in the media and in public concern, to be a plus for the Democrats because of the over enforcement, if you will, by ICE.
You know, we can have a lengthy discussion about birthright citizenship, and I think you could bring back Harry Reid and get a different perspective than where people are today.
The court will resolve that.
They may decide it's statutory and the Congress has the power to change it, but Congress didn't get to change it because they wrestled with immigration for the last 40 years and haven't been able to do anything with it.
Yeah, Ambassador, pretty remarkable seeing Democrat Harry Reid talking about birthright citizenship in that way.
Where are Democrats now with immigration?
It was such a tough issue for them, but now they're trying to own it.
What should the path forward be there?
unidentified
Well, that clipped in where very well, did it?
But the fact is, you don't need to make it that hard on yourself.
The text of the Constitution resolves the current question.
And I know that because I've been told for decades by conservatives on this Supreme Court and in Congress that we care about the text and meaning of the Constitution.
And if there's one thing that's crystal clear in the Constitution, more so than a lot of the things we fight about, it is the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.
And that's where the analysis should stop.
The only reason we're seeing this sideshow at the Supreme Court is because the president wants it and he's willing to engage in these divisive, if ridiculous, exercises.
But I think the question you ask, in fairness, the Democratic Party badly mishandled the issue of immigration and we paid a terrible price for it.
I do think that whatever mandate President Trump had to deal with this problem and whatever progress has been made on the border has been overshadowed by the horrific tactics that we saw ICE employ, the death of innocent Americans, and there will be a price to pay for that.
And I think you've seen the politics, therefore, of immigration completely turned around.
Now, that does not absolve the Democrats of having a common sense position on this and being responsive to the things that voters wanted to see happen.
But my God, I think we have a broad consensus now among a majority of Americans, certainly independents, that ICE has gone way too far and that there's a better way to go here.
So I think you're going to see immigration not be the plus.
Let me put it that way.
It was for the Republican Party.
That's probably also true of crime.
And so in the absence of those two issues in this cycle, they will be struggling to find the kind of fuel in the tank they had in previous cycles.
So how do you advise Democrats to deal with this issue then?
Wasn't good for them before.
Now it's less of a plus for Republicans.
Democrats are trying to lean into the immigration issue now.
Is that smart?
How does this play into the midterm strategy for the left?
unidentified
Look, I think it's always the right time to have a common sense position rooted in basic fairness that people can understand.
And I think if you say the border ought to be secure, our laws ought to mean something, and we ought to treat human beings with respect and dignity, and we shouldn't be killing Americans for peacefully protesting.
I think that's a pretty common sense position, and Democrats can own that in a way that we should.
I think on questions like birthright citizenship, that is a constitutional right of any child born in the United States.
Congratsman, how do Republicans regain their footing on this?
unidentified
Well, I think the sanctuary cities, look, had Minneapolis turned over illegals who had detainers on them to ICE, ICE wouldn't have had to be in there en masse.
They were there.
They had no protection locally, and you got the mess that you got under that.
I think defending those kind of policies is not good for Democrats and keeps Republicans on the offense.
Every time somebody was released on a detainer that had committed a crime, Democrats let back in either because they underprosecuted them or didn't honor a detainer, I think that that goes against them.
So I think the issue is still there.
We'll see how it wears in November.
But Republicans basically have solved the issue at the border, which they were entitled to do.
I think we need to turn our attention to the economy because I think that's where most Americans are.
A great segue into my next question, which is what will the midterms be about?
Because immigration is obviously a huge domestic headline right now, but it's actually kind of getting overshadowed by the headlines about what we are doing abroad.
Given what's happening in the Middle East, given what's happening here at home, what is going to be that issue that gets voters to the ballot box?
unidentified
Well, listen, I mean, I've seen the other side of this, but in this cycle right now, I mean, my friend Tom here says we ought to turn our attention from ICE tactics to the economy.
To me, politically, that's like turning from a firing squad to a hanging.
I mean, my God, if you don't want to talk about ICE tactics in Minneapolis, I understand it.
If you want to talk about the economy right now, I don't understand it if you're a Republican, because everywhere you look, it's terrible, and the situation overseas is making it worse, and anybody filling up their gas tank knows it.
Man, you can try to talk your way into something else on that, but you are trading against the tape, as the Wall Street guys say.
You know, inflation is up.
Unemployment is going in the wrong direction.
You know, gas prices are four bucks a gallon.
Diesel, six.
I mean, that's only going to make a bad situation worse.
Now, if the war resolves and things start to normalize, maybe some of the political heat comes down on that.
But right now, it's nothing but trouble for the Republicans.
So right now, Congressman, I mean, how would you advise Republicans in those competitive races to talk to voters in this moment?
unidentified
Well, first of all, this is not a good time to be polling if you're a Republican, because you're in a war that has not won the hearts and minds of the American people.
And yet, if this thing gets cleared up, pretty sure ruler gas prices come back down, the economic policies, reenacting the tax cuts, those kind of things, set in in time.
I think it can turn.
I've seen these things turn on a dime.
We've got six, seven months to turn that around.
But let me just talk historically about why presidents lose seats in the midterm elections.
Presidential elections are choice elections.
You have two choices.
Midterm elections are basically referendums on the president.
And the problem right now for the Republicans is that the president's numbers are not high, given the war and everything else.
Now, he's the president.
He can set the agenda.
He has an opportunity to turn that around.
Democrats are basically very engaged right now.
If you look at their enthusiasm, much higher than Republicans, that changes the turnout ratio in favor of Democrats.
And then you have a group of independent voters right now that I think are persuadable.
But at this moment in time, Republicans need to win them.
Yet independent voters traditionally in midterms vote to put a check on the president rather than give him a blank check.
So these are the problems Republicans face.
I just add, on the other hand, they've got more money than the Democrats, which is a rarity in this business going into the midterm elections.
And the Republican brand is better, is higher than the Democratic brand.
So how do you put that together?
And I think the Republicans have six, seven months to try to figure that out.
Yeah, Congress is rated very low, both Republicans and Democrats.
By the way, Democrats have 20-some retirements as well.
It's just not a very pleasant place to be.
Plus, you have all this gerrymandering going on where members aren't going to run in a seat they can't win.
So I think that's a combination.
But yeah, there's a warning sign for Republicans.
Most of these members that are leaving, though, are from pretty safe districts.
Their seats are not likely to flip.
When you take a look at the marginal districts like Maine, too, where Democrat's retiring and put that with Nebraska and the Omaha district where Republicans are, it kind of evens out on the playing field.
Yeah, Ambassador, I know you have a bit of a monologue in your back pocket about redistricting and the impact that that is having on our politics.
You want to tell our audience about that?
unidentified
I have a monologue in my back pocket.
That should probably be on my tombstone, yeah.
But I tell you what, look, I agree with what Tom is saying.
We had in 2022, everybody thought it was going to be a Republican wave year, 60, 70 seats.
We had 33 Democrats walk out the door, ended up being, we lost control by four or five seats.
I mean, it was much closer than people thought.
Those retirements probably made the difference.
I mean, a lot of things could have made a difference.
But, you know, that was a big weight to carry.
You're seeing the same dynamic here, and it makes sense.
You have a lot of members who understand what's coming.
It ain't going to be good.
And they are running for high ground.
And a lot of that's in the private sector.
And that is going to make the job harder.
Now, it does matter which seats.
Tom's right about that.
But that is a problem.
I do think, and I think this is what you're alluding to, this redistricting contest that went on, which ended up kind of being a draw, although watch what happens in Virginia still, and you can speak about that better than I can.
But the fact is, is that what you're doing is you're making some of your very safe members a little less safe to try to get more seats.
And when you do that, you don't want to do it in a wave year because sometimes you get too cute and you end up losing seats you wouldn't have lost even in a wave year.
Look at what's going on in Texas.
Keep your eye on Johnny Garcia in Texas 35.
Open seat.
Republicans are getting cute on that.
They may end up getting bit.
Same thing may happen in Tony Gonzalez's seat, too, to his point, without an incumbent running in a district that looks safe but in a wave year isn't.
The fact is that I think you could see the same thing happen with Ryan Zinke's seat in Montana where we got a smoke jumper charismatic candidate running.
That one could be a sleeper in a wave year.
I think those retirements are the tell though.
And it's very hard when you're the party chair because by the way, if things turn around the way they did in 2022 and this doesn't end up being a Democratic wave year, those retirements made your life a lot harder and they were all based on a psychology that was wrong.
And that was what actually ended up looking like what happened in 2022.
This year, I think they're probably right about what's coming, but it's sure making the job of the committee chairman harder.
Well, his predecessor, Jimmy Duncan, voted against one of the Republicans who voted against the Iraq War.
So I think that is kind of reflective of what you see there in the mountains on this issue.
But there's no question that today the Iran war doesn't play to the president and to the president's party.
But who knows where this is going to end up in five or six months?
I think all you can do is take a poll and say that's where it is today.
Seven months is an eternity in politics at this point.
And I think the president sees something else.
This isn't just about politics.
This is about taking a cancer in the Middle East, a very evil regime, and getting rid of their ability for atomic weapons and deliver those weapons to Europe and other countries.
Ambassador, what do you think about what the congressman is saying here?
unidentified
Well, I think that it's hard to only talk politically about something as serious as this war because I feel like the walls are closing in on the president.
The problem is we're all in the same room with him, and you can't wish for failure.
You got to pray that because of the bravery and excellence of our service men and women and our military, that we can pull out a win here.
I do think there's real difficulty in getting the straight open, and there's real difficulty in saying up front you're not going in on the ground, and thank God, because nobody wants to.
But that does give the Iranians the ability to hold out.
And if they hold out, you know, they're still there.
And we've got a bunch of enriched uranium and a closed straight of Hormuz, and none of that is going to help the president politically, and it shouldn't, because it was a terrible set of decisions that led us to this point.
My colleagues write that there are serious issues here.
You have a malignant regime and a real threat, and that had to be dealt with.
But this wasn't the way to do it.
And you sure as heck don't want to do it without your allies and without your friends who are now saying it's your problem, not ours.
And it is hard to see, from my point of view, how any of that turns around by November.
I do think it can get less bad.
I mean, if the president's able to extract our forces, if the strait does reopen, yeah, it won't have the salience in politics that it might otherwise.
But I think most of the folks looking at this tell you that there's serious disruption in the energy markets.
You're looking at higher gas prices.
You're looking at higher inflation.
And the political impact of that is, well, you don't have to be an expert to know that.
Well, plus the president has a base that was looking to him to have an isolationist foreign policy to focus on America first to not go into the Middle East and do regime change and all the stuff that he criticized on the campaign trail.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was asked about some of the MAGA concerns about this war.
As far as President Trump and boots on the ground, I don't understand why the base, which they have already, they understand, wouldn't have faith in his ability to execute on this.
Look at his track record of pursuing peace through strength, America first outcomes.
What he's simply saying, and it's exactly true, and I've said from this podium too, we're not going to foreclose any option.
You can't fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do to include boots on the ground.
Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground.
And guess what?
There are.
So if we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the President of the United States and this department.
Congressman, how much do you think lawmakers on the Republican side right now are weighing whether to sort of lean into what the president is doing or maybe distance themselves, especially those that are campaigning?
unidentified
Well, I think everybody wants to sit back and see how this resolves itself.
You're sitting in a situation right now where Iran can't win, but they can wait us out.
They can test the will of the people, the politics of this.
I think the president will withdraw because it's good politically to get gas prices back down.
And I don't think he's going to do that.
I think once he's in there, he's being urged by some of the Gulf states.
Let's try to finish the job, however you define that at this point.
All I can say is seven months is an eternity in this business.
We're taking a snapshot today.
If I'm a Democrat, my polling is probably not going to get any better than it is today.
But obviously, if this war goes into the fall, there's a political issue, not a geopolitical issue.
A president's going to do what he thinks is right there, but there's going to be a political issue on the ground that will affect Republicans.
You mentioned earlier, Ambassador, that there's this caution with something as serious as the war.
Of course, there's politics involved, but then there's some military tactics, the arms service members that are in harm's way right now.
How delicate should Democrats be?
How sensitive should they be to those issues when they talk about it and criticize the president's actions?
unidentified
Well, I think you owe the American people an honest analysis.
We shouldn't be cheerleading a terrible policy, but we should be mindful, absolutely, that there's young men and women from my district, from Tom's whole district, your neighbors, your friends.
They've got people in uniform going over there or who are in the reserves thinking about where they're going to be activated.
This is deadly serious if you're a military family, and nobody should forget that.
But I have to say that the American people deserve to have a say in this.
And one of the mistakes the president has made among many is that he has not committed the nation to this, which is something we learned after the Vietnam War.
And I will tell you, the last deal-making president to get himself in a quagmire and thought he could deal make his way out was Lyndon Johnson dealing with Ho Chi Minh.
And I will tell you that if the president goes and puts boots on the ground in Iran, well, I mean, if you liked Iraq, you're going to love this.
It is harder in every way than the Iraq conflict was.
You're talking about, even if successful, years and trillions of dollars and thousands of casualties.
So, my God, we shouldn't be going down that road.
But I do hope Democrats will get clear that this was a serious problem.
It remains a serious problem.
And that we should all be hoping for the success of our military.
And we should all be hoping, look, I hope and pray that tomorrow the Iranian regime cries, uncle, and we achieve all our goals, and the president will get whatever credit he gets for it, and we'll go fight about something else politically.
But my best analysis, and what I'd be telling my voters, is that this is a set of bad decisions.
That guy at the Pentagon doesn't know what he's talking about.
He's unqualified to be in that job, and he's getting us all in a lot of trouble.
And the president needs to correct his course, listen to the smart people who know how this works, and minimize the damage.
So this week at Easter lunch with supporters, President Trump said that it's not the federal government's job to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care, seeming to indicate the fighting wars was more important.
Ambassador, does this end up in some Democratic campaign ads?
unidentified
I mean, you know, war, not daycare, is a hell of a bumper sticker and not for the Republicans.
But I will tell you, Tom's right about the national debt.
He's right about the importance of fiscal responsibility.
But the president's talking about a choice.
And when you send up a $200 billion supplemental request, $200 billion more, because of this decision you made to go into Iran, and then you say, we don't have money for health care, we don't have money for daycare.
Well, good Lord.
I mean, what choice do you think a struggling family is going to make out there right now?
You know, daycare costs for a working family, it's crazy.
And health care?
I mean, these are the biggest concerns that working men and women have.
And taking care of your kids, you tell them this thing in Iran is more important than that?
I think that's a tough sell.
And so to be asking for $200 billion for war and saying we don't have money for daycare, boy, yeah, let's have that debate.
Social programs are growing at 7% a year.
They've got to be at some point curtailed or reimagined.
We can't continue to do this with or without a war.
But Tom, you have also seen, in fairness.
I understand the problem.
But in fairness about that, you've also seen, the president said he wants $1.5 trillion for DOD.
Now, I know you know that's ridiculous, but that would be a 50% increase, 50.
It has already gone from 800 when I left Congress a couple years ago to a trillion.
So if we're going to be fiscally responsible, you think we're wasting any money in the Pentagon procurement process?
You think maybe there's some dollars to be saved over there?
And when you're cheerleading us into an ill-thought-out war and you're putting $200 billion on top of that, we spend a trillion dollars every 12 months on our military.
Speaking of the Pentagon, before I let you both go, I want to get to our weekly feature, not on my bingo card, where we highlight a funny, offbeat, or downright weird political or cultural moment.
Check out this unusual activity outside the Tennessee home of Kid Rock.
Two Army Apache helicopters hovered outside the musicians' estate.
You can see it there.
As he looked on, the helicopter crews are based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
So I'm a lot more worried about somebody going in a sauna wearing jeans, drinking milk with RFK Jr. than I am about a couple of Army pilots doing that.
I don't know what Tom thinks.
Well, I wouldn't punish the pilots at this point, but I don't think it's a good look.
And let's close this week's program with our ceasefire moment of the week, highlighting what's possible when politicians come together as Americans, not just partisans.
As American farmers face soaring fertilizer costs, partly due to the war in Iran, the House and Senate have introduced the Fertilizer Transparency Act of 2026, which would require the Department of Agriculture to report pricing data.
The Senate version was introduced by Majority Leader John Thune, who wrote, South Dakota's producers have been facing some pretty fierce economic headwinds over the past few years.
Higher prices for fertilizer and the uncertainty surrounding costs have only strained their budgets even further.
This legislation would empower producers with better information about fertilizer pricing so they can make cost-effective choices.
And Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin co-sponsored the bill.
The agriculture committees in the House and Senate will now review the legislation.
That's all the time we have for this episode.
Ceasefire is also available as a podcast.
Find us in all the usual places.
I'm Dasha Burns, and remember, whether or not you agree, keep talking and keep listening.
unidentified
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
Coming up Saturday morning, columnist and economics professor Peter Morisi discusses President Trump's economic policy, including the 2027 budget request and the latest jobs numbers.
And then Fox News national political reporter Paul Steinhauser previews key elections in the 2026 midterms and how the war in Iran is influencing voters.
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