Chuck Todd opens with the Iran war's arrival on American soil: hackers have hit water systems across multiple states in one of the most serious cyberattacks on U.S. water infrastructure in years and investigators probing an Iranian link. Trump's response tells you everything about the presidency in its current state — he didn't blame the attacker, he blamed the victim, using the hack as an occasion to attack Minnesota Democrats. Chuck’s question hangs over the whole segment: was Trump briefed on the Iranian connection and went after Minnesota anyway? Either way, the first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame, which Chuck calls a kind of polarization disease that leaves a president caring more about his narrative than about American citizens drinking the water. It fits a pattern the episode keeps circling: Jeanine Pirro presented false evidence to a grand jury blaming a former Olympian for damage to the White House reflecting pool, dropped the case when Interior produced documents proving otherwise, and Trump publicly disagreed with dropping it because he still insists it was vandals. Chuck argues negative information never reaches Trump, and people who bring him bad news don't last long — which is how you end up with a president insisting affordability is a Democratic scam

Then, Chuck highlights a Wall Street Journal piece that lays out Trump's corruption — roughly $800 million raised through what amounts to an advertised pay-to-play scheme. Anti-corruption is a devastating midterm message sitting right there for Democrats to pick up… then Chuck Schumer rolled out a bill that Chuck calls a piece of garbage: it wouldn't even cover the conduct in the WSJ story, it's likely unconstitutional because it names individuals, and — most absurdly — it creates a new anti-corruption agency inside the executive branch, meaning a corrupt president would appoint its director and seven board members and, per the Supreme Court, could fire them at will. Congress can already do every bit of the oversight the agency would perform and Schumer's answer to executive corruption is to hand the executive more power and write Congress out of its own job. He closes on Michigan and Wisconsin as the clearest signals of where the Democratic Party is headed — Abdul El-Sayed running a movement inside a Senate race with the explicit goal of changing the party, DSA-endorsed Francesca Wong leading in Wisconsin while the establishment fails to coordinate against her — and on the DSA's new call to abolish the Senate, which Senate Democrats pushed back on without ever defending the institution. Chuck defends it himself: the Senate is a feature, not a bug, a brake on political extremism, and the right response to losing an argument is to win it rather than rewrite the rules. 

Then, Dr. Brian King — the former director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, who was placed on administrative leave in April 2025 as part of the mass HHS layoffs joins the Chuck Toddcast to explain what happens to public health when the agency charged with protecting it gets deliberately dismantled. King walks through the extraordinary progress America made reducing cigarette smoking over decades, and how quickly that's being unwound: the tobacco industry donated millions to Trump's PAC, executives pressured the White House directly, and the payoff has been regulatory capture and mounting pressure on the FDA to bring flavored products back to market. He's clear-eyed rather than absolutist on the science — combustible products are far and away the most harmful, nicotine itself is highly addictive but isn't what's killing people, though it's genuinely not risk-free for the adolescent brain — and he walks Chuck through the comparison to caffeine, the data on whether vaping serves as a gateway back into smoking, and what's actually known about nicotine pouches, where youth usage isn't high but stubbornly isn't declining either. The industry, meanwhile, is spending roughly a million dollars an hour advertising its products while fighting every government action to reduce smoking.

The conversation turns to what actually works and what's being abandoned. King argues the two most effective interventions available are reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes and banning menthol, credits Congress for getting the Tobacco Control Act right, and stresses that Congress — not the FDA acting alone — has to be the one to regulate tobacco, which is precisely why sidelining the agency is so damaging. He and Chuck get into the questions nobody in Washington wants to answer: why are cigarettes legal at all, how are sugary alcoholic beverages not treated in the same category, and where did the money from the 1998 master settlement actually go. King is pointed that the MAHA movement, for all its rhetoric about chronic disease, has done nothing prominent on tobacco, and that the FDA is now actively undermining both the science and the law it was built to enforce. His closing warning is the bleakest note of the episode: America is in a public health apocalypse that will take decades to repair, it will be enormously hard to recruit a next generation into the field, the entire world will be harmed by the collapse of American public health infrastructure — and the impacts are only just beginning to show up.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation, and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

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Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

06:15 The Iran war has become a global conflict

06:45 Once again Trump issues threats, then walks them back

08:15 War is one of biggest strategic mistakes in decades

09:00 Increased gas prices have cost households additional $560

10:30 CISA warns that Iranian hackers are targeting water infrastructure

11:15 Iran could cause unreliability to the American water supply

13:00 Trump used hacking attacks to blame Minnesota Democrats

13:45 Trump didn’t blame the attacker, he blamed the victim

15:30 Jeanine Pirro blamed former Olympian for damage to reflecting pool

16:00 Dept. of Interior had documents proving otherwise, Pirro dropped case

17:00 Pirro presented false evidence to a grand jury

18:30 Trump publicly disagreed with Pirro dropping case, says it was vandals

19:30 Trump’s staff is shielding him from the truth

21:00 Trump’s lack of understanding reality is terrible for him

21:30 Trump’s low approval is a midterm disaster in the making

23:00 Stephanie Grisham says 85% of negative info is kept from Trump

24:15 People who bring Trump bad news don’t last very long

25:30 Republicans aren’t campaigning like things are going well

26:00 Ken Paxton puts out an affordability agenda, looks like a Dem proposal

27:15 Trump still saying affordability is scam made up by Democrats

28:15 Trump can’t understand the reality of the situation

28:45 Was Trump briefed on Iran hack… then attacked Minnesota anyway?

30:00 Trump’s first instinct was to find a Democrat to blame

30:45 Trump is demented with polarization disease

31:15 Trump cares more about his narrative than American citizens

32:15 Trump is bragging about his grifting an Americans are tired of it

33:15 Anti-Corruption is a massively effective midterm strategy

33:45 Chuck Schumer rolls out a stinker of an anti-corruption bill

34:45 WSJ publishes airtight piece about Trump’s overt corruption

35:45 There’s no buffer or plausible deniability for Trump in the corruption story

36:45 Trump is basically advertising that government is a pay to play scheme

37:45 There’s a list of presidential promises for favors that have been bought

38:15 Trump has raised $800m in pay for play schemes with little accounting

39:00 There is no law outlawing a president from raising unlimited money

39:30 Trump is now the biggest alligator in the swamp

40:15 Schumer’s bill is a piece of garbage, why many senators didn’t sign on

41:45 Jamie Raskin is performing oversight, Schumer wants agency to do it for him

42:30 The bill wouldn’t even cover the corruption outlined by the WSJ story

44:00 The bill is unconstitutional because it names individuals

45:00 Laws can target behavior, not individuals. It’d be thrown out in court

45:45 The agency Schumer proposed would live in the executive branch

46:15 Agency to stop a corrupt president would be staffed by the president??

47:15 SCOTUS says president can fire the heads of exec branch agencies

48:45 If bill passed, Trump would pick agency head and 7 members of board

49:15 Congress can perform all the oversight the proposed agency would do

50:30 Congress could stop all this corruption if it wanted to

52:00 Schumer’s idea is to hand more power to the executive branch???

54:30 The plan from congress is to write themselves out of oversight?

57:00 Schumer’s bill will never see the light of day

57:45 Michigan & Wisconsin will show where the Democratic party is headed

59:30 Abdul El-Sayed made clear his goal is to change the Democratic party

1:00:15 His campaign is a movement inside a senate race

1:01:00 Francesca Wong in Wisconsin is frontrunner & endorsed by DSA

1:01:45 Establishment hasn’t coordinated well to stop Wong

1:02:15 Movement politicians are usually right about the future, wrong about present

1:03:30 Sometimes the movement comes first, sometimes the coalition does

1:04:00 DSA has become a force, and is now calling for abolishing the senate

1:05:00 Senate democrats pushed back, but didn’t defend the senate

1:05:45 The senate is a feature, not a bug

1:06:30 The senate is a brake on political extremism

1:07:15 The response is to win the argument, not rewrite the rules

1:08:00 Movement nominees are easier to defeat than governing ones

1:14:15 Brian King (FDA center on tobacco) joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:18:00 We made incredible progress reducing cigarette smoking

1:18:30 Tobacco companies donated and received regulatory capture

1:19:15 Flavored vapes appeal more to kids & are problematic

1:20:45 Trump was pressured by executives from tobacco industry

1:21:30 There were multimillion dollar donations to Trump’s PAC

1:23:00 What’s the actual health data on nicotine outside of smoking?

1:23:30 Combustible products are the most harmful

1:24:00 Nicotine is highly addictive but isn’t causing the harm and deaths

1:24:45 Nicotine can harm the adolescent brain, it’s not risk free

1:25:30 Comparing nicotine vs. caffeine

1:27:15 Vaping typically isn’t a gateway back into smoking

1:28:30 There’s been pressure on FDA to bring back flavored products

1:31:00 $1M dollars an hour is being spent advertising tobacco products

1:31:45 Industry has been fighting all government action to reduce smoking

1:33:15 The FDA has been sidelined in the fight against smoking

1:33:45 Why are cigarettes even legal at all?

1:35:15 Tobacco farmers have transitioned to other crops in other countries

1:37:15 Reducing nicotine levels is highly effective

1:37:45 Outlawing menthol is also highly effective

1:39:30 Congress got it right with the Tobacco Control Act

1:41:15 How are sugary alcoholic beverages not in the same category?

1:42:15 What is age gating technology and how does it work?

1:44:15 Do we have good data on usage for people under 18?

1:46:45 Nicotine pouch usage isn’t high amongst kids, but isn’t going down

1:47:15 What is the data about health impacts from pouches?

1:48:45 Nicotine has a strong stimulant effect, helps with attention

1:49:30 Settlement in ‘98 required tobacco companies to pay costs in perpetuity

1:50:00 States have diverted those funds to other purposes

1:51:00 Did the tobacco industry actually take a hit from the settlement?

1:51:45 If still at FDA, what changes would you implement?

1:52:15 FDA has been undermining the science and the law

1:53:15 Effectiveness of banning indoor smoking

1:54:30 Should preventing underage addictions be the north star?

1:56:45 Congress has to regulate tobacco, FDA can’t do it on its own

1:57:30 MAHA hasn’t done anything prominent on tobacco

1:59:45 Is there litigation that could be pursued here?

2:01:00 We’re in a public health apocalypse, will take decades to repair

2:01:45 It will be hard to recruit people into public health

2:03:30 The entire world will be harmed by collapse of American public health

2:05:15 The impacts are just beginning to show up, will get worse

2:07:00 Toddcast Time Machine - The five days that ended Richard Nixon

2:07:30 Nixon resigned 52 years ago, this week

2:08:15 Why is Nixon the only president that paid a price for his corruption?

2:09:15 We tell the story of Watergate backwards and start with resignation

2:10:30 The June arrests weren’t the beginning of Watergate

2:12:15 We don’t know what Nixon’s operation learned before the arrests

2:14:00 We never got full answer on the missing 18 minutes

2:14:45 Supreme Court stayed in session during summer to oversee Watergate

2:15:15 Smoking gun tape goes public six days after the break-in

2:16:00 Nixon needed 34 votes in the senate to survive, only had 16

2:16:45 Impeachment in the house was a foregone conclusion

2:17:15 Senators didn’t demand he resign, just showed Nixon the numbers

2:20:30 How different would history have looked had Nixon survived?

2:21:15 Ask Chuck

2:21:30 Is presidency becoming more powerful in a way that could outlast Trump

2:24:30 Can the U.S. government create a true unbiased media source?

2:28:15 Would mandatory voting create better political participation?

2:32:45 Would Illinois make for a better early primary state?

2:34:30 Why not hold every primary on the same day?

2:36:45 Personal anecdote about AI job displacement and fear