transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Tonight, the president orders the military to shoot and kill any Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. His peace talks are at a standstill. Then, a US soldier involved in the capture of Nicolas Maduro is arrested, accused of pocketing almost half a million dollars through Polymarket bets tied to the mission. Plus, how Syrian billionaires reportedly tried to influence American foreign policy by using the Trump name. As The 11th Hour gets underway on this Thursday night. Good evening once again, I am Stephanie Ruhle, and two days from now, Donald Trump's war on Iran will hit the eight-week mark. Remember, he said this war would last four to six weeks. It is already costing Americans at the gas pump and will likely cause prices for other things like food to increase. And it is far, far, far from clear that this war will actually end with any major meaningful change in Iran. Right now, it seems like the two countries are stuck in a complete standoff. Today, Trump ordered the Navy to shoot and kill any boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Both the US and Iran are claiming they have control of the key waterway. But Iran says they have now collected revenue for the first time for some serious tolls on ships that are passing through the Strait. The country is reportedly trying to formalize its control of the Strait. The US sees another ship that it says was transporting oil from Iran. It is the third time the US has seized a tanker in just the last few days. As you can imagine, this has not been good for the price of oil, which topped $105 today. And gas is still more than $4 a gallon across the country. And the head of the International Energy Agency clearly does not think this is just a short-term issue. Today he told our colleagues at CNBC, quote, We're facing the biggest energy security threat in history. And I want to clear something up. One of Trump's new talking points is that he wants to give Iran time to figure out what to do next, because their leadership is in such disarray. Here's how he put it earlier today.

Speaker 2:
[02:09] Now what we're doing is sitting back and seeing what deal. And if they don't want to make a deal, then I'll finish it up militarily with the other 25% of the targets.

Speaker 1:
[02:19] But for facts sake, experts on Iran tell MS Now that the idea that there are deep divisions in Iran's government are just not true. The regime is still in place, and the truth is, it has only grown more hard line. We have a lot to get to, so let's get smarter. With the help of our lead-off panel this evening, Alex Ward is back, national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Jessica Yellin, who we've not seen in ages. I'm thrilled she's here, independent journalist and founder of News Not Noise, and David Drucker, senior writer at The Dispatch. Okay, Alex, there's a lot going on in this war, but it doesn't seem like any of it is bringing anything closer to an end. Give us an update on where you think things stand. I can remember the first two, three days of the war, all of my Wall Street sources where this thing's gonna be over by Friday, four or five days max, you know, nothing more than a week. Here we are almost eight weeks.

Speaker 3:
[03:12] Well, we're stuck in the weirdest game of chicken I've seen in a long time. I mean, at this point, you have the Trump administration holding out for hopefully that Iran gives up its nuclear program or ambitions. You have Iran still using the Strait of Hormuz as basically holding it hostage, hoping that it provides leverage in negotiations. While both sides don't necessarily want to continue fighting, they also don't want to stop the war without getting the most they can from their opponent. We're stuck as you said at a standoff. The interesting thing will be is, who loses patience first, who blinks first. Both sides feel like they have more time than the other. But the Iranians are effectively betting that if the stock market goes down, if the gas prices go up, if the global economy starts to hurt even more, then it's probably Trump who will blink first. Whereas Trump believes he is starving the Iranians of so much money that they have no choice but to capitulate to his demands. Both are taking pretty risky bets, which is why we're in this moment that we're in.

Speaker 1:
[04:14] David, Trump is hitting back on the many, many reports that say he's anxious to find a way out of this war. So now he's telling the American people he's okay with the situation. He doesn't care if it stretches on for weeks or potentially months.

Speaker 4:
[04:28] Well, yeah, that's what he's saying this week. Who knows what he'll say next week? Remember last week, this time Iran had agreed to a deal. They had agreed to everything. It was just, it was done basically. They just had to, you know, dot the i's and cross the t's. Look, militarily, we are so powerful and overwhelming that there's nothing Iran can do about that. But the problem for the president is that the Iranian regime has a higher threshold for pain than we do because they don't care about their economy and they don't care about the well-being of their own people. And so for them, survival is victory. And survival after taking the pummeling from the greatest military that has ever graced the face of the earth is more proof to them that they can survive anything. And I think for the president and for his party, the question is, when does the patience really begin to run out? When does the pressure from the right ratchet up such that they start looking for ways to mitigate this or looking for any way out? It may not necessarily unfold that way. But one of the things we know from talking to economists, Stephanie, I'm sure you know this better than me, these geopolitical shocks will send gas prices, it will send oil prices up very quickly. But even once you solve the problem, it takes a long time for oil prices to come back down. The president and the Republican Party were already dealing with political pressure from the high cost of living as far as voters are concerned. The number one thing they hired Trump to do, he had not accomplished. This is only exacerbating that. We're beginning to see these outer bands of the Republican coalition get really impatient and unhappy with this. And the longer this goes on, the more that unhappiness gets closer and closer to the loyalists who will never move. But at that point, you have a very unhappy Republican electorate.

Speaker 1:
[06:32] I don't know. There's a few very public Trump loyalists that seem to be moving these days. Jessica, at any point, the president could have come out and explain to the American people why he was doing this, how it was going to affect our lives, and why the sacrifices we would have to make would be worth it. But he didn't. So what are you hearing from people that you cover about this war?

Speaker 5:
[06:54] It's interesting, Stephanie, that you ask that. The number one question I get, because I talk to my audience online a lot, the number one question I get about this war is, why are we in it? I can talk to people who are intense news consumers, they understand what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz, they're paying attention to the details. What they don't understand is the case for this war. That's a huge political problem for the president, because in theory, he could win the military campaign, he could even get the concessions from Iran that he wants. But if he hasn't made the case, then he hasn't actually won the narrative, he's lost the story. That's one of the reasons you see these poll numbers showing that a majority of Americans now oppose this war, they don't think it's worth the price, either in American lives or financially for the country or for themselves. A healthy number of Republicans, 30 percent depending on which poll you look at, also object to the war and that is a real problem for the president. Then as others have pointed out, but I'll be more specific, some of the president's most valued supporters, Joe Rogan has come out now questioning why we're there. You've heard from Tucker Carlson, you've heard from Megyn Kelly, but now to have Joe Rogan add in, this all adds up and I do think the president has a clock, and his clock is the midterms, and he has a lot of distance to cover between now and the midterms. If this war continues until then, there's going to be a lot more pressure in the US than there is on the regime to wrap this up.

Speaker 1:
[08:26] Even if it doesn't continue until then, so much damage has been done to David's last point. It takes a long time to get back to a good place. Alex, you've got some pretty interesting reporting today because the president is saying we have never had so much ammunition. You're actually reporting that it could take years just to replace America's stockpile, which has huge consequences when it comes to China. Lay it out for us.

Speaker 3:
[08:52] Yeah. Well, first, let me quickly say, I think the president has given his case to the American people. He's delivered it multiple times, both on the day of the address and in a national primetime speech, which is effectively a compendium of his truth social posts. The thing is the public doesn't buy it, right? Because he's basically saying the stock market can go down 25 percent, and you might get your pay cuts, you might lose money, but it's worth it because you won't get nuked by Iran.

Speaker 1:
[09:15] Yeah. But Alex, he also said, hold on. I spoke to the president three, four weeks ago and he said, Iran was two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon and they plan to use it. I cannot find any Iranian experts who support that, who say that was true. So he has been an argument to the American people, but it's not an honest one.

Speaker 3:
[09:38] Agreed. We're in total agreement, but that's still his argument to the American people. Right? His argument was, you're going to get nuked by Iran, you're welcome that I've done this. You're right. Iran was weeks away from having enough nuclear fuel to make a bomb if they wanted to make one, but that is much different than having a weapon ready to go to strike everybody. That's his argument. Again, the American people are not buying it. But either way, on this notion of the munitions, yes, the president keeps saying, as to his money, but in many arguments, the United States can do this because it has enough munitions, it has enough air defense missiles to do this operation in Iran, that there's no reason to keep a certain amount ready should something happen with the Chinese over an invasion of Taiwan in particular. What we're finding out is that could the US still deter and fight China if needed? It could, but it would be far riskier now because the missile, the standoff missiles in particular, but also the air defenses, et cetera, aren't where they were before February 28th. There have been war plans developed assuming that there would be that amount of munitions before the war. So what happens if the Chinese were to invade Taiwan imminently? That would mean that the US troops would have to take bigger risk, that they would have fewer protections, that American forces wouldn't be able to shoot from as far away, which puts them, especially those in aircraft, at risk. So again, could the US still fight a war with China, which there's no sign one is happening anytime soon, to be clear. But could it still fight one? Sure, and probably very well. But not as well, which is the point here. And if you argue, right, that there was no real reason to go to war with Iran, they weren't about to have a nuclear weapon and bomb everybody, that there wasn't a real pressing, imminent need for this war, then what the strategic calculation the Trump administration, or the strategic argument is, it was worth to weaken the American position relatively against China in order to do this war against Iran.

Speaker 1:
[11:37] Jessica, I think you were trying to jump in there.

Speaker 5:
[11:39] Thank you. I believe that the president has offered many cases for this war in Iran. He has said it's about the missiles, he has said it is about the nuclear program, he has said it's about the protesters, he has said it's about the regional stability. He has not driven a single consistent message that is an argument. I covered the Iraq war when I covered the Bush White House. Every day it was the same message over and over. A White House knows how to drive a message when they choose to. I think that the president doesn't have a coherent, consistent case that he's making to the American people and that is one of the reasons people are very confused.

Speaker 1:
[12:15] David, you brought up the midterms. Polls are showing, we just walked through it, that the war is very unpopular with the American people. Once Republicans get through their primary, do you think the chances go up that they could change their tune on how they feel about the war?

Speaker 4:
[12:31] Well, I definitely think that's possible and I think we have to look at races that are competitive and not pay attention to those very red districts that have been gerrymandered in such a way that the whole ball game is in the primary. So you've got some key Senate races and competitive states. You've got some red states where the polling looks pretty competitive and then there's going to be maybe about two to three dozen house districts that are truly competitive depending on the atmospherics when we get to Labor Day. I'm already hearing more grumbling about the war and its impact on inflation and prices broadly than I've heard in a long time. It's still being sort of muffled, if you will, but the fact that Republicans are getting a little bit more antsy about it and they're willing to talk about it on background, if you will, not for attribution, but concede that there's a lot of frustration and a lot of concern tells me that once we get out of primary season, if things haven't changed rather remarkably from their perspective, I think there's a good chance we'll hear a lot more about this in a more public fashion. But I always caution with Trump that it takes a lot for Republicans to cross him in a particular way because they're always so concerned about a social media bomb that tells their own Republican base that they still need to get across the finish line, not to bother showing up for this guy or this lady. It's not me, they're disloyal, and they're colluding with the Democrats. I still think the way in which you'll probably see it happen, if it does, is much more of a, I'm trying to help Trump affect his agenda. I am with him and I'm trying to help him. And that's, I think, mostly what you're likely to see, except for a few cases where it's clear that they're in states and districts where the public has completely, completely turned against the president.

Speaker 1:
[14:33] Yes, but of course, in the case of the president and the war in Iran, his agenda is not aligned with much of his base. Jessica, for anybody who watches this show, it's not a surprise I want to cover this next story. Today, the DOJ charged a US soldier with using classified information to make bets on Polymarket. This soldier was directly involved in the Venezuela raid that captured Maduro, and he is accused of using inside information to make 400 grand. What does that mean for our national security if this is happening within our armed forces?

Speaker 5:
[15:08] Look, it's horrifying for national security, and it's also not entirely surprising, right? I mean, these are people who have unique access to this intelligence. They see an opportunity, they're cash strapped, and we live in a country where our government practice is open corruption every day and people don't get caught or stopped. I think that it is not a surprise that someone would feel tempted to do something like this. I read the story and I thought, I mean, come on, did this person think they would not ultimately get found out? There's a digital trail of these things. It's so easy to catch them. My fear is that a person like this gets prosecuted and goes to jail, and whoever it is that's doing the trades that are getting tens and hundreds of millions of dollars on Polymarket who have unique access to the intelligence that only a very few people close to the Oval Office might have, would not get charged. And the little guy gets in trouble, but not the main dogs. One thing I'd add step is that it is so weird to me when I talk to political folks these days, sources I call up to talk about politics. Increasingly, they cite Polymarket and call sheet numbers in estimating how races are doing around the country. So as much as they talk about polls or focus groups, they're also looking at these predictive markets. We see them as reliable and they're seen as an increasing part of our sort of our political economy.

Speaker 1:
[16:37] Yet they have absolutely no regulation and we're seeing bad behavior throughout them all the damn time. But yes, Polymarket and Cal she feel like they're here to stay. And if you sit down and talk to the founders, they certainly think so. All right, gang, thank you so much for starting us off tonight. In the midst of everything else happening right now, I just want to share this thing with you. The president also talked about his renovation plans for the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall today. And I want to share just a little bit of what he said, because there's a good chance you missed it. Watch this.

Speaker 2:
[17:10] That's where Martin Luther King gave his great speech. And he had a million people and I had the same exact crowd, maybe a little bit more. But they said I had 25,000 people until I had pictures of Martin Luther King's crowd. My crowds, the exact same everything, but it was 70 years difference. The exact same crowd, but I actually had more people, but that's okay. They gave him a million people. They said a million people and I had 25,000 people.

Speaker 1:
[17:39] Yeah, no, that wasn't AI. That wasn't an April Fool's joke. That was the President of the United States taking a moment in the middle of a war to compare crowd sizes with a civil rights icon. And I thought you should know. Coming up later in the program, a new report digs deep into the blurred lines between American policy and Trump's family business. Once again, you know the question we're asking. If you're at home, let's ask it together. Is this White House for sale? But first, after the break, the art of the deal? From the trade war to an actual war, the President's way of doing things is putting us all at risk. I want to revisit what the art of the deal actually means in money power politics. That is next, The 11th Hour, just getting underway on a busy Thursday. It is time now for Money Power Politics. Donald Trump ran on fixing the economy, but a new CNBC survey finds the president's net approval rating on the issue and overall is hitting new lows, even among Republicans, where support has declined by eight points. In light of this new poll and all that Trump has been up to, I think it's time that we got a refresher on the art of the deal. Last year, Trump demanded GOP-friendly redistricting down in Texas, figuring Democrats would just whine and do nothing. He was wrong. Democrats fought back and gained seats. Now, he and Republicans are calling it rigged at the table that they set. Then there's the trade war that he started, believing the world would bend to his will. Again, he was wrong. Manufacturing shrunk, jobs were lost, and companies devoted their brain and manpower to supply chain management instead of innovation. Prices went up while farms and small businesses shut down. After the Supreme Court ruled his tariffs illegal, we are left in a $166 billion refund mess, none of which will go to the consumer, all while China inked new trade deals with some of our closest allies. And if that was not enough, we're actually in a real war with Iran, a country Trump thought he could bomb into submission and exit within a week. It is now week eight. Energy production is wildly disrupted, gas prices have spiked, the Strait of Hormuz is shut, and Trump still won't tell us exactly how much this war costs, and he is mad at our NATO allies who he bashed for a decade for not coming to the rescue. And finally, we might actually bail out the UAE and Spirit Airlines, decisions that put taxpayers on the hook if things go south. In fact, all of these decisions, from gerrymandering to the trade war to the Iran war, are putting Americans, our economy, and our democracy at risk one way or another. So, I guess that is the updated version of the art of the deal. My friend Justin Wolfers joins me now. He's a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. And Bharat Ramamurti, former White House National Economic Council's deputy director and author of The Bully Pulpit on Substack. Bharat, is it really a surprise with decisions like this that support for the president, especially on economic issues, are going south?

Speaker 6:
[20:51] No, I'm frankly, I'm surprised they're not lower as abysmal as they are. I don't think, for a president who came into office, swept into office really on a cost of living agenda, promises to bring down the cost of living, I don't see how anybody can look at what he's actually done and feel like he's focused at all or delivered any success on that front. In fact, all of the major actions that he has taken have directly raised costs for people from the tariffs to the war in Iran, spiking the cost of oil and food prices in the United States. The one piece of legislation that his administration has passed was basically tax relief, largely for big corporations and the wealthy, very little for the typical person. And so the American people rightly have tuned into the fact that this president is not very interested in solving what they identify as their biggest problem.

Speaker 1:
[21:40] But the stock market remains strong, Justin. Stocks dipped a little today, but not as much as one would think given what's happening. And I read something interesting from Bloomberg today. They lay out the five reasons that they believe markets are hanging in, that they've priced in worst-case scenarios already, and they believe an off-ramp is in reach. There's also some optimism. Many countries still have their own oil supplies. We have seen better than expected corporate earnings, and there's continued investment in AI, which will improve productivity, which is good for companies' bottom lines. What do you make of these five arguments?

Speaker 7:
[22:16] I think that makes a lot of sense. And the most important thing to remember, this is basic finance, but easy to forget. Markets rise when something happens that's better than what they expected. So, you know, just like when I used to, if I brought home a C on my report card, and mum expected a D, she wouldn't be angry at me. Well, my mum was a little bit like a financial market that way. And if you remember, two weeks ago, the president was threatening to blow entire civilizations off the face of the earth. I mean, I've got extraordinary news for you, really good news, fantastic news, actually, for the state of the economy. The president stopped doing that. And that makes me and I think lots of other people feel a whole lot better about the state of the economy. And so of course, stock prices are higher today than they were two weeks ago.

Speaker 1:
[23:02] No to our viewers, in case you take your advice about the economy from Justin, you just told us his mom only expected Ds. Don't forget that. Bharat, what do you think?

Speaker 6:
[23:13] Yeah, I agree with that analysis. But it's also important to remember that 90% of shares are owned by the top 10% of households. And about 50% of households in the United States have no stocks whatsoever. So a lot of people like to follow the stock market because it's a kind of a daily barometer. But it's not a daily barometer of the economy, at least the way that most people are experiencing the economy. And so we experience this in the Biden administration as well. I like to point to the fact that stocks were up and that we were having a successful quarter. And none of that really translated into people's satisfaction with the economy. So really, this president is in a bind where with time dwindling before the midterms, his levers available for delivering the kind of economic change that he promised people are rapidly diminishing.

Speaker 1:
[24:01] Let's talk about a different change, Justin. The New York Times is reporting that according to an internal memo, Metta, the parent company of Facebook, will cut 8,000 employees. That's 10% of its staff as it spends heavily on guess what, AI. The Times is also reporting that a Microsoft internal email shows plans to offer thousands of workers buyouts, yes, as they're investing in AI as well. What is your take here?

Speaker 7:
[24:27] It's still very hard to tell how much of this genuinely is AI. But even if it's not yet, at some point in the next two or three years, that fundamentally is the story. I think the deeper question here is actually, how much is this a story about the coding part of the workforce or all of the rest of it? Look, Steph, I'm going to admit the truth. I'm coming to you right now, having just spent the afternoon on an absolute Claude Code binge. It was fabulous. It was a bender. It's writing all sorts of wonderful things for me right now. But the economics of this is, I'm not hiring a young software engineer to do that. So the good news story is I can do this by myself and then the young software engineer can go one day and get an even better brighter job to help the world and we make even more. The bad news is it's a very, very painful transition and we really need to be talking about and thinking about and developing solutions for what looks like an utterly transformative technology that's going to change the live market in extraordinary ways.

Speaker 1:
[25:30] Here's the issue. When we say we need to, there's a question mark at the end of it. Who is that we? Is it government? Is it business leaders? Because right now, nobody has accepted the assignment, not in a significant way. Bharat, we talked about it at the top of the show, but I wanted you to weigh in. The Justice Department prosecuting someone, a US soldier, for allegedly using classified information to place bets on a prediction market. As somebody who was part of the White House, what's your reaction? Because when I was talking about it in the last segment, Jessica Yellin said something so interesting that this could end up being a case that this person in the military is prosecuted, faces consequences, but he's just a small fish. And the big, big ones, the whales that are close to the president, that have all sorts of information, they'll get missed.

Speaker 6:
[26:16] Yeah, I share that concern. I think you're going to see that kind of differentiated prosecution, and I think it's going to have pretty severe implications. Of course, there's also national security concerns. I mean, if our enemies are monitoring the movements on these prediction markets, and they also all of a sudden start to see very large bets being placed on certain types of actions taken against them, they can anticipate that something's coming down the pike. And so there's a financial reason that we want to start regulating conduct on these prediction markets, which is really the wild west right now. But there's also really important national security considerations that I think hopefully will motivate policymakers to step up to the plate and do something about this. Because we don't want our soldiers to be in harm's way because somebody back home is trying to make a quick buck.

Speaker 1:
[27:06] Ain't that the truth. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me tonight. I appreciate it. Always great to have you here. When we return, some extraordinary new reporting. I'm glad we're getting to bring it to you. Laying out how people who want to change our nation's policies have been working to forge financial ties to guess who? The Trump family. We're going to have that when we come back. If you're taking a drink swallow, because I don't want you to spit it out, you know we have been keeping a close eye on the president's businesses during his second term. Well, this week, a new piece from The New York Times details the actions of a family of Syrian billionaires who reportedly invoked the Trump name to win favors in Washington and change US policy. According to the paper, a member of the family approached South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson last summer with an idea to develop coastal property in Syria. But the only way to do it was to lift crippling sanctions that were imposed by the US on Syria before the fall of the Assad regime. To help accomplish that, Congressman Wilson offered an idea. Watch this.

Speaker 8:
[28:16] You need to have a sign at the golf course, and needs to say future site of Trump National Golf Course. Of course. It's coming. It's coming with the golf course. Whether it is going to be here. Hey, hey, hey, whether it's a Trump National or not, you can put proposed Trump National Golf Course in Syria. I know how to get the president's attention. And that is, please, we'll do that.

Speaker 9:
[28:46] That will be amazing.

Speaker 8:
[28:47] He loves saying Trump Tower, but he really, he really, as you know, in Scotland, likes golf courses and hey, and Florida, I mean, you name it. So please come up with a good-sized billboard, proposed Trump National Golf Course, Syria.

Speaker 9:
[29:05] Of course, we are ready for that.

Speaker 8:
[29:06] If someone can do it, absolutely, my dearest friend.

Speaker 9:
[29:09] Of course, it's ready. And actually, while I'm designing the project, I have in my consideration that this is going to be like Trump Golf Course.

Speaker 1:
[29:17] I'm guessing that by holding his hand here while talking, Joe Wilson is trying to make it seem like he's sharing a secret. We should note that the White House and the Trump Organization both say they were not aware of the proposal. The Trump Organization said that no discussions were underway, and White House officials rejected any suggestion that the Trump family related real estate discussions had any impact on the president's foreign policy choices regarding Syria. Still, it leaves us asking the question, is the White House for sale? I want to bring in New York Times investigative reporter, one of the absolute best, Eric Lipton. He's the author of this piece. Eric, I'm so glad you are joining us tonight. Walk us through this reporting. What did this family's efforts reveal about how people who want to get things from this administration are trying to gain favor with the president?

Speaker 10:
[30:06] We've already seen that there are foreign governments that have offered things of great value to the Trump family. That is the United Arab Emirates, a $2 billion crypto transaction. The Qatari government is a co-player in a golf course deal. The Saudi government is part of a real estate deal involving the Trump family. But what we're seeing now as well is that not only are there kind of governments that are doing things to reach out to the Trump family, but there are people who want to try to influence US foreign policy. And one way to do it is to propose a deal with the Trump family. So in this case, we have a proposed Trump golf course in Syria, and the brother of Muhammad Al-Khayyat, who was there in that video clip, the brother of Muhammad is actually doing a real deal with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in Albania to co-finance a $3 billion real estate project. So at the same time as they're seeking the repeal of sanctions in Syria, they are doing deals with the Trump family. This is important because this family has $12 billion worth of reconstruction projects in Syria. And unless the sanctions are lifted, they're going to have a hard time financing it. So they're trying to influence US sanctions policy while at the same time doing deals with the Trump family.

Speaker 1:
[31:31] You describe efforts to win over US lawmakers dating back to the spring with free offers to go to Syria. But Congressman Wilson was a particular target. Why this guy and what did that effort look like?

Speaker 10:
[31:44] Well, you know, Joe Wilson has been an advocate for Syria for many years and has been, you know, quite concerned and, you know, abhorrent at the massacre by the Assad and his henchmen in Syria. And so he has been quite an advocate for overturning Assad's reign. And he wants to see economic development there. But he also realizes that, you know, that by aligning with Trump and by showing other Republicans in Congress that this group of investors is aligned with Trump and financially perhaps partnered with him, that that could help get the sanctions repealed. There's not really a question that it was the right thing to do to repeal the sanctions. Assad is gone. The United States should be allowing investment there. The question is whether or not people who had a financial interest in repealing these sanctions were talking about doing deals with the Trump family and influencing foreign policy as part of their desire to see this change in US policy. So it's just a weird world where in order to get something done in Washington now, you often have to bring up some benefit for the Trump family. It's similar to what is happening in Ukraine now. Some of my colleagues report it where they're talking about maybe naming a region of Ukraine the Doniland after Donald Trump. That's a way to incentivize Trump to continue to express an interest in Ukraine's fate and the Donbass. So it's just a weird world where you really have to make a personal financial appeal or even a named appeal to the president in order to continue to engage him.

Speaker 1:
[33:19] Okay, but that's the thing. So like even if the president and the White House had no knowledge of this specific proposal, how about exactly what you just laid out? Because from my own reporting, different CEOs who have gone to Secretary Besson or Howard Lutnick when they're looking for tariff exemptions, the answer is always, well, what can you offer the president? What does it say that this is where we are? Even the suggestion that it could work.

Speaker 10:
[33:44] Yeah, I mean, all you need to do is look at all of the nonprofits that are accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and kind of as a way to show deference or homage to the president. These corporations are doing it thinking that this is a way to impress the president and to get their agendas moving. What does it say? It says that there is this very historically unprecedented mixing of the personal financial interests of the family of the president and US domestic and foreign policy. It's just something we've never seen before in modern really in American history. The blurring of the lines. Having his family so deeply involved in international commerce and with foreign government transactions at the same time as dad is in the White House in charge of as the most powerful person in the world.

Speaker 1:
[34:33] Then what needs to be done to change this? Because in Trump's first term when he did a fraction of this, Democrats said, let's vote him out of office and when we do, we're going to make sure this never ever happens. Well, they did vote him out of office and during that period of time, Democrats didn't change any of the rules and now Trump has supercharged this behavior with no end in sight.

Speaker 10:
[34:54] I mean, it's up to members of Congress to decide if this is something they think is inappropriate and to set limits. The president is exempt from the Federal Criminal Conflict of Interest Statute and the Supreme Court has also ruled making it hard to document an action of corruption by the president because of the way that they're interpreting official actions. So there isn't very little limitation currently on what a president can do and put him or herself in jeopardy criminally. So it really is up to the American public and Congress to decide if this is a norm that they want to embrace moving forward.

Speaker 1:
[35:40] Then I guess the answer is, is the White House or sale? Maybe. And it seems like people are okay with it. Or are they? Eric, thank you so much. This is pretty fantastic reporting. When we come back, new warning signs for our democracy, growing numbers of young voters who say the country is on the wrong side of the track and they have little faith in our government. What it could mean for the midterms and our country's future when we return. As we head into the midterms, new polling shows that young Americans trust the federal government, trust in the federal government has fallen to an all time low. Of the 18 to 29 year olds surveyed by the Harvard Youth Poll, only 15% say they even trust the federal government to do the right thing on all or most of the time. And 50% say they feel deeply affected by inflation and rising prices. My next guest says, these numbers are a signal leaders cannot afford to ignore. Joining me now, John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. John, I'm so glad you're here. Help us understand this because your team conducted this poll. What are the main issues affecting young voters today? Because cost of living was a top issue and it's why so many people, so many young people actually swung to Donald Trump in this last election.

Speaker 11:
[37:00] That's right, Steph. And listen, inflation, cost of living is clearly the headline. But what makes this moment so important is that there's a stack of issues that younger people are struggling with every single day. Number one, it's a daily cost of survival. Yes, it's a cost of living, but they also talk about in our interviews and in the polling about health care costs more, they're receiving less. You have a 30 percent increase in rents over the last four or five years. Of course, the war is something that has younger people incredibly anxious every single day. They were among the first because of their most vulnerable to connect the dots between conflict overseas, rising oil prices, gas prices, increasing their overall cost of living, and so many young people I talked to, as you well know, are just on the verge of whether or not they can stay and afford their own apartment or not. So it's a daily struggle, and all that adds up to mental health crisis that we still can't ignore.

Speaker 1:
[38:09] Did you see different attitudes between party affiliations?

Speaker 11:
[38:15] On the big issues, actually not. I think what younger people are experiencing, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or independent, or indifferent, are the same basic challenges. The differences, however, we saw were important, and that relates to whose interest in voting and who tells us they're likely to vote in the upcoming midterms. On that measure, we see young Democrats far more likely and enthusiastic to turn out in November compared to young Republicans. There's a 20-point difference there. 55% of young Democrats said they're likely to vote, whereas only 35% of young Republicans say.

Speaker 1:
[38:55] Well, politicians and the midterms aside, your polling showed something that was very alarming to me. Just 26% feel hopeful about their future. That is down from 55% in 2021. This is a massive change. In 2021, those young people had just experienced COVID.

Speaker 11:
[39:16] They were still a sense of confidence. You're right. That is the signal, I think, that we all need to be paying attention to if we care about this democracy stuff. What's changed in this new era, I think, of understanding youth vote is that there's engagement. Younger people are paying close attention to the news, but there's not the confidence that the system can provide the answers to the challenges that are necessary. They see Washington, where it once could prescribe medicine and prescriptions to deal with a particular crisis, to be just a giant placebo. Nothing matters. It's all fake. So they're questioning whether they should even participate. You said 59% wrong track, 15% have trust in the federal government. Instead, I think so many of them are considering withdrawing and just taking care of each other, which is a deep, deep concern that we have.

Speaker 1:
[40:13] For you, were the numbers that you saw in this poll just a continuation of where we've been, or is there anything that was such an outlier or a surprise that was your big wow?

Speaker 11:
[40:23] I think the surprise was that disconnection between agency and caring about these issues. That for the last 25 years or so, things obviously kind of weren't great, but the first era in the early 2000s, there was some basic understanding that government could work, that civic participation was something that should be valued, that there was a shared narrative. There was a second era around Obama, where there was a lot of hope, obviously, and coalitions, people could see themselves represented. The third era, which we were just finishing up, there was a lot of anxiety and people were voting for things they disliked, which was the first Trump administration. In this era, they care deeply, but they are so cynical. I am deeply concerned about whether they participate. And what the message I want to express on behalf of young voters is, they're judging whether or not they'll participate. They're monitoring, they're auditing the process. And they want to hear directly from elected officials about how they can directly impact the current experience. If they hear that, they'll turn out. If they don't, they'll take care of each other. And that's a bad, bad sign, I think, for the future of our democracy.

Speaker 1:
[41:42] We do not want our young people to be cynical. When they are, we need to turn our attention to ourselves and fix it. John, I'm so grateful every time you join us. Thank you so much. Really important stuff. We'll be right back. That does it for us tonight. From all of us here at MS Now, thank you for staying up late. And have a safe night.