Is Trump Trying to Lose the Midterms?

**Jon Favreau** (0:20)
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

**Jon Lovett** (0:22)
I'm Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor.

**Jon Favreau** (0:24)
On today's show, the mission in Iran is so accomplished that we're back to bombing.
We'll talk about Trump's response and how he and Pete Hegseth are losing support for their war from the most senior US military officials, which may put a damper on Pete's potential presidential campaign. Talk about that too. We'll also cover the Supreme Court allowing Trump to build his ballroom, Trump calling Americans opposed to building data centers, quote, backwards and poor, and some of the other shit sandwiches Trump is forcing Republican candidates to eat before November. Speaking of pieces of shit, Trump advisor Laura Loomer said some disgustingly racist things about black women that no Republican has denounced as of yet. And she's also taken credit for the deportation of right-wing creep Milo Yiannopoulos. Tough to pick a side in that one. There is no side.
Then Tommy celebrates his birthday by sitting down with Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the dem nominee for governor in a critical state. Oh, yes.

**Jon Lovett** (1:25)
It's your birthday. Happy birthday, Tommy.

**Tommy Vietor** (1:26)
Thank you, guys. I got us a contact for future Vegas trips.

**Jon Lovett** (1:30)
Oh, great.

**Tommy Vietor** (1:30)
So, if we get in trouble, we can call.

**Jon Favreau** (1:34)
Oh, that is, speaking of things that are critical.

**Jon Lovett** (1:37)
If you can get arrested for losing money and then going to bed at 11

**Tommy Vietor** (1:43)
Yeah. Being thrown out of Cirque du Soleil.

**Jon Lovett** (1:45)
Yeah.

**Jon Favreau** (1:46)
Okay. Well, quick announcement. Speaking of trips, we're heading to Austin later this month for a live show at the Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, September 25th.
It says here in the script, it's going to be a great time.

**Aaron Ford** (1:59)
I think that's right. Great. That's one less thing to worry about.

**Jon Favreau** (2:04)
Thanks for writing that out. All four of us plus special guest, Bobby Polito, the Democratic nominee in Texas 15, one of our most important pick up opportunities in the house. We might even get him to sing, which would be really cool. Grab your tickets to the festival and join us. We posted the link on our site at crooked.com/events. Can't wait to see you in Austin. That's crooked.com/events. All right. Let's get to the news. It was just five days ago that the president declared mission accomplished in Iran by posting what appeared to be an AI generated image of himself, George W. Bush and the Ayatollah.
But by Sunday night, the missiles were flying once again. The IRGC were about to fire mind-laying rockets over the Strait of Hormuz from nearby Larik Island. The US military launched airstrikes to stop them. And then Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at US bases in Jordan, all of which were intercepted. Our commander-in-chief responded in between rounds of golf over the weekend by deploying a full arsenal of AI slop about his trade war with Canada and his hot war with Iran.
What the?

**Tommy Vietor** (3:42)
The Ducks were Canadian, they're not on our team.

**Jon Favreau** (3:46)
For those of you just listening...

**Jon Lovett** (3:47)
Just a Karate Geese.

**Tommy Vietor** (3:48)
Oh yeah, sorry, Canadian geese.

**Jon Lovett** (3:50)
We like to be accurate.

**Tommy Vietor** (3:51)
You're right, Canadian geese.

**Jon Lovett** (3:52)
Get the facts right.

**Jon Favreau** (3:53)
Yeah, so for those of you just listening, those were videos of Trump replacing a Lake Ontario sign with a Lake America sign while dancing to YMCA, an army of Canada geese with M16s wearing Trump wigs patrolling Lake Ontario, and a series of imaginary airstrikes destroying an imaginary Carg Island, which Trump said was, quote, blown to smithereens in the caption despite no airstrikes occurring there back here in the real world.
So according to Axios, there's apparently a real plan in the works to potentially launch limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz to stop Iranian attacks on oil tankers, Navy ships and US fighter jets. But that can't be true because Trump and the extended Magaverse has assured us time and time again that the Strait is open. So what do you think is going on?

**Jon Lovett** (4:44)
That's not true.

**Jon Favreau** (4:45)
Yeah, maybe it's not true.

**Jon Lovett** (4:46)
That's not true. You know what I hadn't realized? What? That the...
I only realized after Trump posted that image of him saying he was better at accomplishing missions than George W. Bush, which is that mission accomplished took place on the Abraham Lincoln, which is the ship that has been out for... was out for 250 days for what was supposed to be a four-hour tour. Oh, no, that's the Gilegan's Isle. Four to six weeks. But so, I just thought...