Trump's "Absolute Fiasco"

Talking Feds

Harry Litman

News, Politics, Government

4.8 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In our latest Contrarian episode, Norm Eisen, Norm Ornstein, and Jen Rubin join Harry to assess new flashpoints in Trump's nonstop quest to escape accountability and his hasty efforts to claw free of his war in the Middle East. The group takes stock of Trump's stumbling attempts to find a deal with Iran, which seem likely to leave the U.S. weakened and isolated. The panel also weighs the bombshell state charges against an ICE agent and the odds that Trump could name two new Supreme Court justices before year's end. Mentioned in this episode: The Contrarian: https://contrarian.substack.com/ Norm Ornstein's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dsrs-words-matter/id1420216970 The Robert Kagan article about America's changing place in the world: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/03/trump-national-security-greenland-spheres-of-interest/685673/ The profile of Justice Alito: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/samuel-alito-supreme-court-conservative/686756/ Norm Ornstein's kakistocracy article: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/american-kakistocracy/542391/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Where the hell am I?
0:02.0	It's a fighting tournament.
0:04.0	To the death.
0:05.0	It's called Mortal Kombat for a reason.
0:09.0	The tournament begins.
0:11.0	Johnny Case.
0:13.0	You have been chosen to fight.
0:15.0	Come in or what?
0:16.0	I'm an actor.
0:17.0	I can't do this.
0:19.0	You're fighting for the fate of our world.
0:22.0	Get over here!
0:24.9	Mortal Kombat 2. In Cinemas May 8. Book tickets now.
0:28.6	It's show time.
0:36.6	Welcome to Talking Fed's, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests.
0:43.3	For a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day, I'm Harry Littman.
0:50.3	It's our periodic episode with colleagues drawn from the deep bench of the thriving pro-democracy outlet, the contrarian.
0:59.9	If we had thought the DOJ could go no lower than Pam Bondi had taken it, Todd Blanche quickly proved us wrong.
1:08.3	This week, under Blanche, the department maneuvered to vacate the seditious conspiracy
1:14.2	convictions of the worst of the worst January 6th insurrectionists and signaled it next would
1:21.1	move to dismiss the cases altogether. And in another blow for accountability, a two-one decision by a DC circuit panel
1:30.5	shut down Judge Jeb Bosberg's effort to examine whether the administration knowingly disobeyed
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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