Episode Details

Chuck Todd opens with the two stories dominating the weekend: the Iran war's cascading economic consequences and Trump's vile celebration of Robert Mueller's death. On Iran, Chuck warns that rising energy costs with oil above $100 a barrel are not politically neutral — they function as a tax on existence that directly breaches the contract Trump's own voters signed up for — and that Trump is visibly panicking about gas prices because they disproportionately hurt his base. He argues that killing the Ayatollah was never going to topple the regime because the Iranian leadership doesn't operate as rational actors who can be deterred by suffering, that Trump made the same catastrophic miscalculation Putin made in Ukraine by assuming it would be easy, and that nobody in Trump's orbit will deliver bad news because there is now a North Korea-level sycophancy around the president.

He then turns to Trump's Truth Social post celebrating the death of Mueller — a Bronze Star combat veteran, 12-year FBI director, and lifelong public servant who died at 81 from Parkinson's disease — in which Trump wrote "Good, I'm glad he's dead." Chuck notes that even Fox News' Brit Hume tweeted that this is why people don't merely oppose Trump but actively hate him. He argues that character matters in politics more than any policy position, and that Trump is fundamentally incapable of showing grace or knowing when to shut up He revisits the Mueller investigation itself, arguing that the real failure wasn't the probe's legal conclusions — which confirmed Russia took action to help elect Trump and that the campaign expected to benefit from stolen information — but that there were no consequences, and that Trump's refusal to acknowledge Russian help was never about innocence but about protecting the legitimacy of his presidency, with the entire GOP going along because copping to it would have been politically fatal.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the nuclear meltdown incident at Three Mile Island and argues that it derailed a massive transition to nuclear energy that could have led to energy independence and potentially avoided multiple wars in the middle east. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order.

Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CHUCKTODDCAST at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/chucktoddcast

Thank you Wildgrain for sponsoring. Visit http://wildgrain.com/TODDCAST and use the code "TODDCAST" at checkout to receive $30 off your first box PLUS free Croissants for life!

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:15 Launching a new sports history podcast on Tuesday!

08:30 Noosphere interview with Joseph Allbriton

09:45 Providing local news services to the Washington D.C. area

11:30 Bezos didn’t live in DC, didn’t understand WaPo’s mission 

12:45 The war in Iran is impacting everything. Everything else is downstream

13:15 Rising energy costs are not politically neutral, a tax on existing

14:15 Rising costs is a breach of the contract Trump voters signed up for

15:45 Iranian regime isn’t going to fight as rational actors, suffering doesn’t deter them

17:00 Killing the Ayatollah was never going to topple the regime

17:45 Nobody will give Trump bad news, he only hears what he wants to hear

19:00 There is a North Korea level of sycophancy around Trump

20:00 Trump made same mistake Putin made in Ukraine… thought it’d be easy

21:15 Trump alienated America’s allies, they want no part of his war

22:00 America is isolated and alone, but really need help fro