I do want to switch gears uh Attorney General Pam Bondi out this week, um, probably not a surprise to folks who were watching very closely.

Susan, you, you, you followed the White House very closely.

Um.

in general, what can you tell us about uh Pam boni's dismissal, her relationship with the president, but also the fact that she really didn't get much of a soft landing the way that, let's say Homeland Security Secretary Christi Noem did and others, um, you know, he was gracious, but he sort of just sent her packing.

That's exactly right.

She's out and there's no face saving job, but you know, I mean, even Kimberly Guilfoyle, his, you know, son's former fiancee landed as the US Ambassador to Greece.

Nothing like that for Pam Bondi, and that's what's so re mark able I mean, it's a, you know, we're 10 years in the Donald Trump phenomenon.

So on some level, people should not be surprised to understand that a president who has made loyalty the Supreme requirement for serving him feels no obligation to offer it himself to those who have, you know, in many ways remade their entire lives, remade their careers in order to serve him.

Pam Bonni, great example of that.

I think people who knew her best.

There was a terrific, you know, profiles in both the Atlantic and The New Yorker that make it very clear this woman transformed herself, you know, many of the people who worked closely with her when she was a pretty well regarded, pretty nonpartisan prosecutor in Florida.

They were stunned, you know, people saying, Who the heck is this sort of MAGA warrior who's now the Attorney general, and you know, look at the record of what Pam Bondi did.

She attempted to prosecute a long list of Donald Trump's personal and political enemies at his very explicit orders in many cases.

She fired personally hundreds of career attorneys, thousands more left the department on her watch.

She has pursued and fanned the flames of the January 6th conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

These things will be on her record, but Donald Trump seems to be mad at her that she didn't contain the Epstein Pile scandal and that may be it and Michelle, I wanted you to kind of flesh that out a little bit more.

So it seems that to her detriment, she just could not get control of the messaging, uh, behind the Epstein files.

Um, what else are you hearing as far as what led to her ouster?

And are others next?

Well, so we've been hearing for a long time.

Like this was not a surprise.

I think some of this was trickling out for a while, but he was unhappy with her, that he was frustrated with the coverage of the Epstein Files, and it seemed like she could not find a way out of it to kind of navigate this, you know, in terms of the DOJ, we're not expecting any departures like Todd Blanche seems to be sitting well as the interim AG.

It's possible he could move into it.

The frustrations with Tulsi Gabbard that the president has had are very interesting because he, those have been kind of hot and cool over the last year.

There was a time early, early in the administration where it seemed like she might be on her way out.

He was very frustrated by a video she put out on her own about the dangers of nuclear conflict conflagration around around the world.

She she seemed to have kind of redeemed herself in his eyes with the Georgia elections investigation, but I thought it was interesting.

She wasn't at the cabinet meeting last week.

She was one of the only ones not there, and yet I keep hearing the same thing that she's probably OK for now.

Well, for now, and I think the thing is we've had two high profile departures in the last month, and we know that the president did not want this to look like the first term when there were all these huge firings, and that's why we've seen those soft landings.

In fact, it was like everybody became an ambassador of sorts, was the kind of the way out.

You weren't truly just given the door like Pam Bondi was.

But, you know, maybe give it a few months, a little bit of time will die down.

We might see some more.

I mean, Idris, looking at Secretary Hegseth, who barely skimmed through the confirmation process.

How what's his position at this point?

Is he, is he on good standing?

You know, Heckat seems to have made quite a few missteps, you know, signal gate, you know, a number of different issues, but I think Trump sort of sees him like a son in in some ways, you know, he seems to be willing to accept the shortcomings that are very public and doesn't seem to have the same level of ire or frustration with him.

Look, Iran, if it doesn't go well, Trump is going to look for a head to roll.

It could be Secretary Hecka, but we're also hearing names like Army Secretary Driscoll, who was seen as very close to JD Vance.

So I think it's going to be interesting to see sort of the hexed Driscoll dynamic play out in the next few weeks.

Not to bounce back, but you said if it doesn't go well, what does that define what does define that for me.

Look, I think if there is a mass casualty event in the Middle East, and, and, you know, that could be problematic, or B, this war just keeps on continuing on the economic front thinks continue to worsen.

I think that could be seen as not going well.

Right.

Well, um, this is definitely something that we definitely want to follow, but before we go, um, in the last couple of minutes, um, let's turn to something that has captured certainly my imagination, um, and the imaginations of people around the world.

good.

4 astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hanson are officially on their way to the moon.

Artemis II is the first crude mission to the lunar vicinity in over 53 years, serving as the dress rehearsal for a human landing, currently planned for 2028.

Peter, a little birdie tells me that you're a space nerd.

What is the significance of this for the country, for you, it's only because we're at the club's me, you know, the clubs together, the meetings, you know, you and I have the same secret.

There we go.

We're going to be competing for first journalists in space, but no, it was an extraordinary moment, and I think, uh, you know, I think a lot of people say, look, it's a rerun.

We did this 50 years ago, but we haven't done this in most of our lifetimes.

And, and to go outside of our planet and the immediate vicinity to go to another world is and should be an inspiring event.

Unfortunately, it happens at a time when we're so divided at home, right?

We have war, we have political divisions and tribal divisions and the, uh, you know, even on the night of this triumphal launch when they, everything went right.

Uh, even then, they only had about 2-hour window in which they could celebrate before Donald Trump comes on screen and changes the subject back to war, but it, it is this one thing, I think that brings people together at a time when we don't trust our institutions and we don't agree with each other on the endeavors that we're we're trying to achieve, you know, we don't trust our president, we don't trust our Congress.

We don't trust our Supreme Court.

We don't trust our media.

We don't trust a lot of things these days collectively, but if you look at the polls, one of the things we trust is NASA.

We trust the space program.

We trust them to get it right.

And so I think we'll see in the next 10 days, um, uh, whether that transmits back to the to a country and to a world that could use a little bit of inspiration.

Definitely, and something we're all going to be very excited to watch, but we're going to have to leave it there for now.