We Didn’t Start The Fire with Sam Forstag

Al Hunt (0:10)

Hello and welcome to Politics War Room with James Carville and I'm Al Hunt. This week, our guest is a congressional candidate for the first district in Montana, Sam Forstag, who is a smoke jumper. Remember, we love taking your questions, so write to PoliticsWarRoom with gmail.com for next week's show.

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Hey James, a president who lobbied around the clock to get a Nobel Peace Prize goes before the United Nations. The United Nations and threatens to annihilate a sovereign nation to drive them into hell with no hope for survival, which of course would be a war crime.

The news, however, is not that. The news is a reaction. Most leaders just shook their head and said, there goes the crazy one again. They know he got into a war that he thought would be a piece of cake like Venezuela, instead has the Middle East in the state of carnage, and he's desperately looking for a way out. He has the most compromised negotiators in son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate pal Steve Witkoff. There is a 70-30 kind of unofficial guideline for negotiating. Listen 70% of the time. These two guys may spend 70% of the time trying to figure out financial deals themselves while ostensibly negotiating. I encourage everyone, everyone read the New Yorker's Dexter Filkins on Kushner's conflicts. It's a chilling piece. Then at home, James, the reaction was similar. Three Senate candidates, Mike Rogers of Michigan, Ashley Hinton of Iowa, and Ohio's John Husted called on Trump to end this war, which of course they have all supported.

And Brian Donalds, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in Florida, had been a big, big Trump guy, has scrubbed his website of multiple Trump references. James, when Natalie leaves him, we can rev up the buses.

James Carville (2:45)

You know, I keep coming back to the guy doesn't want to do the job anymore. He's just on autopilot and, you know, we'll talk about this more when the inevitable hits him in November, he's not going to...

He's not right right now. He's deteriorating. He doesn't like the job. He's obviously getting bored with it. This fiasco in New York. And what was interesting is there's nobody in that administration was able to say, Mr. President, we're going to the UN. This is not the form you want to talk about, annihilation. Because at some point, if you keep talking like that, you're not going to end up at the UN, you're going to end up in the hog, which is where the International Criminal Court is, is where he deserves to be. But I'm beyond being shocked, appalled, or anything that he does. I think the man is in his final convulsions, or whatever he's doing.

You're right to point it all out. And what's really amazing is, with all of the foreign service and all the people that you have, nobody could say, sorry, that's not the form to talk about annihilation. But that's the world we live in.

Al Hunt (4:06)

Yeah, it sure is.

James, let's talk about another one of his crazy moves. He banned CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from covering the White House. This is about a distraction from all the awful things that are happening to him, as well as a violation of the First Amendment. Here's the point that gets overlooked. Trump charges that it's all fake news from these reporters.

Well, if it's fake news, Trump has a recourse. Publishing or broadcasting something you know is false, that's fake news, is defamatory. But if he sues and anyone who stands up to him is the Wall Street Journal and the Des Moines Register and Times have proven, he loses because he's lying. And I would say three cheers for major news organizations, solidarity for the expelled three denied him coverage, which of course is his oxygen. Now, of course, this ban will be overturned. They went to court and they basically said, you know, access is a right. There's namely, you know, and it's rather it's a privilege, not a right. There is a First Amendment basically by their interpretation says, Congress shall make no law that in any way impedes the press that isn't friendly to you. I mean, it just, it's sick is what it is.