Ashley, um, the the I mean, as I noted before, the president is still the president.

You and Michael Sheer this week wrote a piece.

I want to read something for me.

You talked about the the president's grand vision of of himself.

You wrote, "Trump's heightened tendency to view himself as a world historical figure capable of brash, misunderstood greatness, has transformed his second term, and not necessarily in a good way.

Republicans are in a panic about the political costs of the attack on Iran, which has increased prices and interest rates ahead of an election that will hinge on affordability.

I want to go to Adris in a second to talk about the actual core issue here.

Um, but give us a little sense of of the argument of the piece and what you have seen in Trump that's that's changed that caused you to want to write this.

Yeah.

So, Trump's second term feels so demonstrabably different than his first term.

and we we were sort of reporting and thinking about questions of legacy.

He's not behaving the way you rationally would as a second term president who has a party that is facing what's looking to be an increasingly close midterm election.

And he's he's also doing another thing that most presidents do, which is remaking the city in his image and putting his physical image on on just about anything he can and in building arcs um to himself.

And so we started to ask these questions and one thing we heard was that Trump privately had begun comparing himself to Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Julius Caesar.

And what we realized in talking to people around him, someone told us, look, he is talking about himself as potentially one of the most powerful men who has ever lived and will ever live.

And he he is seeing himself in these terms.

He is seeing himself in the broader scope of history.

and there is a sort of freeing of of of his ambition and his whims.

The guard rails are gone and he doesn't particularly care if Republicans hold the hold the House.

He cares a little more if they hold the Senate because that may make a difference in an impeachment trial and he sort of cares about a successor but that too is complicated because he doesn't want anyone usurping him and that's sort of what our piece explores.

Right.

So, so Idris, before you can be Caesar or Napoleon, you've got to get gas prices down.

I mean, they had that same problem.

Um, talk about the president's economic woes and how longlasting they might be la meaning into the fall, into the election season.

Um, yeah, I mean, the fact that the oil is not flowing um will be a problem.

You know, you can't just restart these refineries in the Gulf like that.

They take a while to come back online.

It's unclear even if they will.

Um, America's exposed to international markets.

So, Asia is going to be affected a lot sooner than America because of their dependency on Gulf oil.

Europe will as well.

Um, that will affect American markets.

But even here, you see gas prices are up 50%.

Consumer confidence from the University of Michigan's survey is at its lowest point ever, ever, ever right now.

Um, you know, the US economy is still on the whole doing a lot better than Europe, but people have been feeling glum about the economy for a really, really long time.

Um, this is really not the set of economic priorities that you want to be uh sending before you go into the midterms.

Mortgage rates are going to go up.

Farmers, you know, the constituency that that Trump really professes to care about have been affected not just by tariffs, but now uh added fertilizer prices because of the Gulf, increased diesel prices.

Um, you know, airlines are going to get more expensive.

It's just not the right condition for uh for a president who wants to win the midterm elections.

And really, it's it's also not the right condition if if he wants to run for a third term, which it doesn't seem like he is at all.

Right.

right?

What um what would it take and how long would it take to unwind these things in a way that by September give him a better shot give the Republicans a better shot at holding Congress?

I I I don't think it goes back just like that.

I mean there you know these not just on the flow of oil but all these things.

Yeah.

No no it takes a while you know like business uncertainty for example has gone up a lot right uh the Federal Reserve is not going to cut as was as was expected.

So people who were going to buy a house this summer just won't be able to.

And even even if this stuff is resolved tomorrow, um all of that does not change and all of those economic conditions are just going to persist for at least a while.

Um and that's to say nothing if this if this goes on for longer and countries like Japan are affected, uh Europe's affected, you know, then then it gets really bad.

Right, Peter?

There's been some compelling uh reporting that that says that the Iranian economy is on the brink of collapse because of the because of the blockade.

Um so does the president actually have a patient plan to bring about regime change that would really change the the Middle East over time.

I'm not asking in relationship just to the midterms, but more generally, is he on a pathway that is actually smarter than conventional wisdom would have it?

Well, look, we'll see.

But I think that in Washington we have traditionally historically over uh overestimated our ability to affect other countries uh governmental systems.

Right?

We have been squeezing Iran historically under presence of both parties now for decades with sanctions that are tougher than most countries have ever endured.

And it made no difference whatsoever in terms of who was running Iran.

We've been we've had Cuba in a choke hole for 60 70 years.

It did not change who runs Cuba.

We have not changed who runs North Korea by by cutting off all the things we have cut off from them.

So I think that yes, maybe this could happen.

I don't want to rule anything out, but history suggests that we have limits to our ability to affect other countries governments, right?

Uh Susan Pete Hexet, the Secretary of Defense, um went to war against Congress and the Democrats this week.

Let's let's watch this.

The biggest advoc adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.

I would argue that the biggest adversary we face is some combination of Shia and Sunni terrorist extremism, Russia and as a long-term threat, China.

But al, you know, he Pete Hexith is arguing that congressional Democrats uh are the same.

He's was incredibly pugnacious in these hearings and the administration, as we know, just announced uh in anger that it's going to withdraw 5,000 American troops from Germany as a way of punishing the German chancellor.

U because who who said that that that Iran is humiliating the United States?

Give us your sense of of this of this brittleleness and this anger coming out of the Pentagon.

How serious is it?

And what does it mean for that for the war effort and for relations with Congress that has to fund these war this war effort?

Yeah, I mean Donald Trump and Pete Hagath have thumb their nose at at at Congress since the very beginning of the administration.

And what's been notable is that while Republicans control both chambers, they've done almost nothing to it.

uh you know in fact uh it was remarkable to hear uh King Charles of of Britain give a speech to Congress this week where he mentions uh the Magna Carta and says you know that uh this is a great progenitor of America's checks and balances uh and the great members of Congress who've done nothing to serve as a check on Donald Trump rose in a bipartisan standing ovation.

As far as Pete Hexath goes, I'm really Do you think the king was smirking a little bit on the inside?

Like he got a funny joke over, you know, the British do uh dry wit uh better than the Americans do.

What's amazing is that Donald Trump didn't seem to get the joke.

Uh and he later called it a fantastic speech.

But I want to answer about Peak Hegsth.

I'm really glad you played that clip because to me that gets at the essence of what he and Trump have been doing that is so different.

They redefined national security from the very beginning of this administration.

uh as about the enemy within.

Donald Trump gave a famous interview in October of 2024 in which he was asked about who is America's greatest adversary and he said you know there's Russia there's China and then there's the enemy within and of those the greatest threat is the enemy within hegth now defining a new set of enemy within I think they've redefined how they see the role of the military and it's a vision by the way of unchecked executive power because what it means is that if Donald Trump or Pete heath identifies someone as an enemy, they can use this vast powers at their disposal without anyone in Congress or anywhere else doing anything about it.

Andres, do you remember any period in American history in which a secretary of defense has argued that the greatest enemy facing the United States is me are members of the opposing party?

I mean I don't um but uh you know there's traditionally a sense of uh gravitas of um of purpose that the defense secretary has when when they carry themselves the president has when they carry themselves that obviously you don't you don't see um here and and the fact that you have you know as you pointed out the the king talking about checks and balances which are very different from the English system right he's sort of remind he's sort of giving constitutional lessons to the president.

Um, I found that very odd.

And also the fact that he got tariffs removed on Scotch whiskey was also a kind of inversion of, you know, 250 years ago we're protesting tea tariffs imposed arbitrarily by the king of England.

Now the king of England is sort of begging our leader to please remove these tariffs and we're a seeding.

I mean, it's it's all very odd.

And this is obviously, of course, a power that is core to Congress, right?

Article one, it's right there, right?

It it is actually astonishing if you think about it that a descendant of King George III is lecturing appropriately many lights uh the United States on democratic behavior but here we are.

Um I want to ask about the Democrats.

Uh they're very fired up right now, Peter.

Um so fired up that the the populace seem to be on the march.

Graham Platner in Maine has a clear shot of the Democratic nomination for for Senate.

Um, and and this just really struck me.

Democrats seem very inclined to forgive him for having a tattoo of an SS tattoo, a Nazi tattoo.

I've been surprised at the double standard here.

If Republican candidate for Senate had an SS death death head tattoo, I don't think the Democrats would be so forgiving.

What's going on?

No.

Well, they want to win.

That's what's going on.

Look, when it's your side, you're always more forgiving than it's the other side.

Why are Republicans always forgiving of Donald Trump?

Because it's their side.

So Democrats are being forgiving of Graham Platner because they want that Senate seat and that's one of the most vulnerable Republican held Senate seats in the country.

Now is he the guy to take it?

You know, he says, by the way, in in fairness to him that he didn't know it was an SS symbol, but he said plenty of other incendiaries and provocative things that he's had to take back and apologize for over the years.

And it gives a lot of people uh some, you know, concern about whether he is up for that job.

But he is a champion right now of the progressive left.

He is now uh essentially defeated without even getting to the primary the sitting Democratic governor who was the choice of Chuck Schumer and the establishment of the party forcing her to drop out.

So the progressives feel like they have a little bit of head of steam there.

Whether that works in the general election, I don't know.

It works in the Democratic primary maybe.

Well, that's the question, Susan.

I is the is the populist surge great for certain candidates in the primary season and then the reality is he has to run against Susan Collins who's a main institution.

Well, that's right.

I mean, she's much more vulnerable, I would say, now than in her previous bids for reelection.

But, you know, look, it's always hard to generalize, right?

In Texas, you had a Democratic Senate primary in which it was James Telerico, who was, you know, really the more centrist candidate who won that contested primary, and he's now giving Democrats a shot, a very unlikely shot.

I'll believe it when I see it.

uh but you know at least a shot in deep red Texas at a seat because in fact he didn't come from the far left of the party and he's preaching a very different kind of message.

So I I think it's hard to generalize Jeeoff uh I do think Democrats are uh in in in verging on what might have been called uh a little bit of uh irrational or maybe rational exuberance headed into these midterm elections.

There's a lot including redistricting uh that could still go wrong for them, but uh Donald Trump's numbers make them the favorites in many respects.

Adri, quickly, the the decision by the Supreme Court to overturn this uh gerrymandered district in Louisiana pretends not such good things for the Democrats.

Yeah, but it's it's close enough to the primary date that not that many states are going to modify their lines.

It's too late to modify the line.

In Louisiana will try to do that.

Florida will try, but uh the real effect will be felt in 2028.

Right.

Ashley, last word to you on the Democrats uh and this rational or irrational exuberance on the left.

I mean, I think this is you're seeing it in different states, but this is going to me be the key debate we see play out, this divide in the party in the 2028 primaries.

Uh well, thank you very much.

We're going to have to leave it there.

There's so much to talk about, but I want to thank our guests for joining me