Clip: After Bondi's ouster, who could be the next official fired by Trump?

Vivian Salama: I do want to switch gears, Attorney General Pam Bondi out this week, probably not a surprise to folks who were watching very closely. Susan you follow the White House very closely. In general, what can you tell us about Pam Bondi'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 Kristi Noem did and others? You know, he was gracious, but he sort of just sent her packing.

Susan Glasser: That's exactly right, she's out, and there's no face-saving job. You know, I mean, even Kimberly Guilfoyle, his, you know, son's former fiance, landed as the U.S. ambassador to Greece, nothing like that for Pam Bondi.

And that's what's so remarkable. I mean, it's a -- you know, we're ten years in to 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 Bondi, 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 file scandal, and that may be it.

Vivian Salama: 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 behind the Epstein files. What else are you hearing as far as what led to her ouster, and are others next?

Michelle Price: Well, so we'd been hearing for a long time, like this was not a surprise. I think some of this was trickling out for a while that 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 A.G., 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 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 conflagration around the world. She seemed to have kind of redeemed herself in his eyes with the Georgia elections investigation. But --

Vivian Salama: I thought it was interesting. She wasn't at the cabinet meeting last week.

Michelle Price: Right.

Vivian Salama: She was one of the only ones not there. And yet I keep hearing the same thing that she's probably okay for now.

Michelle Price: Well, for now. 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.

Vivian Salama: I mean, Idrees, looking at Secretary Hegseth, who barely skimmed through the confirmation process, what's his position at this point? Is he on good standing?

Idrees Ali: You know, Hegseth 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 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 Hegseth. But we're also hearing names like Army Secretary Driscoll, who is seen as very close to J.D. Vance. So, I think it's going to be interesting to see sort of the Hegseth-Driscoll dynamic play out in the next few weeks.

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

Idrees Ali: Look, I think if there is a mass casualty event in the Middle East, and, you know, that could be problematic, or, B, this war just keeps on continuing, on the economic front, things continue to worsen, I think that could be seen as not going well.

Vivian Salama: Right. Well, this is definitely something that we definitely want to follow.

But before we go in the last couple of minutes, let's turn to something that has captured certainly my imagination and the imaginations of people around the world.

Unidentified Male: Integrity, good roll pitch.

Vivian Salama: Four astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are officially on their way to the moon. Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the lunar vicinity in over 53 years, serving as the dress rehearsal for 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?

Peter Baker: It's only because we're at the clubs -- you know, the clubs together, the meetings, you know, you and I have the same secret.

Vivian Salama: There we go.

Peter Baker: We're going to be competing for first journalists in space. But, no, it was an extraordinary moment.

And I think, 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 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, you know, even on the night of this triumphal launch, when they -- everything went right, even then they only had about a two-hour window in which they could celebrate before Donald Trump comes in on screen and changes the subject back to war.

But 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 trying to achieve, you know, that 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, and 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 ten days whether that transmits back to a country and to a world that could use a little bit of inspiration.

Vivian Salama: 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.