Episode Details

Chuck Todd opens with the Iran ceasefire collapsing as the U.S. and Iran trade strikes again — but the real story, he argues, is that the U.S. military just inadvertently revealed Trump was lying about the war all along. The targets American forces hit in this latest round were the very targets Trump claimed weeks ago had already been destroyed; either Iran somehow reconstituted its entire military in a single week, or the president lied to the country, and CENTCOM's own report makes clear which it was. He warns that lying about war is historically not a small thing for a president to survive, no matter how badly Trump wants to memory-hole the entire episode. He then turns to the escalating Democratic fight over taxing billionaires, taking a characteristically nuanced position: billionaires are genuinely undertaxed, but "tax the rich" doesn't work as actual policy the way it works as a slogan, the loopholes built into the code exist to avoid unintended consequences, and the changes to the inheritance "death tax" are responsible for an enormous share of current inequality. He assesses Zohran Mamdani taking a victory lap as the new face of the DSA (and increasingly comfortable as a face of the Democratic Party), praising him as a genuinely compelling performer and possible heir to the Bernie movement while questioning whether his story can travel beyond New York City. He closes with one of his favorite structural arguments — that the far-left and far-right are now feeding off each other's fear, that a faction doesn't need to capture the whole country, just one congressional caucus, and that the founders' actual protection against factions was supposed to be a multitude of them — which is exactly why the House was meant to scale with the population and why Congress's choice to freeze its size needs to be reversed. He also looks ahead at fascinating Colorado primaries.

Finally, he hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to explain the origin of the name of the bikini swimsuit, and why America’s relationship with nuclear technology changed over time. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Asl Chuck” segment. 

From the opening whistle to the final kick. Bet on a match and get bonus bets for every goal scored at Fanduel.com 

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Timeline:

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00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

05:15 U.S. and Iran trade strikes again, ceasefire not holding

06:15 The U.S. military basically revealed Trump was lying about the war

06:45 Historically, voters don’t accept lies from presidents about war

07:30 The targets the U.S. hit were targets Trump said were already destroyed

08:30 Three weeks ago Trump said Iran had nothing… clearly it wasn’t true

09:15 Making the case that Trump is full of shit isn’t hard*

10:30 Either Iran reconstituted its military in a week, or Trump lied. 

11:15 CENTCOM’s report shows that Trump lied to the country

13:15 Trump announced on his birthday that he had ended the war

14:00 Handing Iran billions of dollars is hardly the “surrender” Trump proclaimed

15:45 Lying about war is not a small thing for a president to do

17:15 Trump thought he could memory-hole the Iran war, Iran won’t let him

17:45 There’s a right way to tax billionaires, but it’s not currently being proposed

19:00 Billionaires are undertaxed, but tax policy doesn’t work as a slogan

19:45 Loopholes are built into the tax code to avoid unintended consequences

20:30 Reforms to the inheritance tax allow the wealthy to avoid tax