Episode 166 | Trump Goes Nuts as His Term Crashes

It's Complicated

Renato Mariotti

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Trump published some of his most inflammatory social posts ever, threatening that a “whole civilization will die” in Iran and prompting both Democrats and prominent right-wing voices to call for his removal under the 25th Amendment. Asha and Renato discuss how destroying civilian infrastructure or wiping out an entire country constitutes a war crime, and they explain how the 25th Amendment would work in practice. Plus, they discuss a recent DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion that claimed the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. Renato and Asha break down the nonsensical reasoning laid out in the memo and analyze why it’s trying to give cover to Trump’s handling of White House documents during his second term. Listen up! Asha’s Philippe Sands Interview: https://asharangappa.substack.com/p/freedom-academy-book-club-38-londres Asha Substack: https://asharangappa.substack.com/ Subscribe to our podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/its-complicated Follow Asha on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/asharangappa.bsky.social Follow Renato on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/renatomariotti.bsky.social Follow Asha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asha.rangappa/ Follow Renato on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renato.mariotti/ Cruise with us! https://www.travelstore.com/group-travel/its-complicated-cruise-2026/ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN?sub_confirmation=1 Become a member of Legal AF YouTube community: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgZJZZbnLFPr5GJdCuIwpA/join Become a member of the Legal AF Substack: https://michaelpopok.substack.com/20off Follow Legal AF on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/legalafmtn.bsky.social Follow Michael Popok on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mspopok.bsky.social Subscribe to the Legal AF podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legal-af-by-meidastouch/id1580828595 Subscribe to the Intersection with Michael Popok podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intersection-with-michael-popok/id1818863274 Subscribe to Unprecedented with Michael Popok and Dina Doll podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unprecedented-by-legal-af/id1867023089 Subscribe to Court of History with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-court-of-history/id1867022920 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So Renato, are we the bad guys now?
0:05.0	It's complicated.
0:11.0	I'm Renato Marietti.
0:13.0	I'm a former federal prosecutor, a practicing lawyer, and illegal analyst.
0:17.0	And I'm Asha Rangappa.
0:19.0	I teach national security law at Yale University. I'm a former
0:22.6	FBI special agent, and I'm the author of the Freedom Academy Substack. And we're here to help
0:28.0	you understand topics that can't be boiled down into a soundbite or a speed. I will tell you that I thought a good first question might be like, will Trump kill us all?
0:42.4	I mean, that is, that's truly, you know, where things look like for a while, Oshah, where you had him threatening to blow civilizations off the planet.
0:53.4	Who says that?
0:54.9	An entire civilization will die.
0:57.9	Someone who's evil.
0:59.1	Wait, I'm going to pull this up because I think that if anybody's been hiding under a rock and did not hear this.
1:06.6	You're right.
1:07.1	I think the memo was written before.
1:08.7	So the tweet I have tagged is Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Exclamation point, exclamation point. Open the fucking straight. You, oh, sorry. Open the fucking straight. You crazy bastards. no g there um or you'll be living in hell
1:29.9	just watch praise be to allah president donald j trump that was on easter yes he has risen indeed
1:39.6	yes yes um and then we had do you have the tweet that he did, I guess, yesterday?
1:48.0	I'm in the UK right now, so I'm kind of my time is off.
1:52.0	So I'm not sure exactly when it went out.
1:53.9	Well, I mean, there was the tweet where he says a whole civilization will die to
1:58.1	us.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Renato Mariotti, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Renato Mariotti and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.