A Heritage of Shame

Summary

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The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: "A Heritage of Shame"

Date: November 3, 2025
Host: John Podhoretz
Panelists: Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, Eliana Johnson
Special Context: Episode marks Eliana Johnson’s debut as a regular panelist

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode addresses the eruption of open and ideological antisemitism on the American Right, focusing specifically on the Heritage Foundation’s recent defense of Tucker Carlson following his interview with Nick Fuentes—a notorious neo-Nazi—on Carlson’s podcast. The group explores how supposed “mainstream” conservative institutions like Heritage now appear to be lending credence to the normalization of Jew-hatred, the resulting crisis within American conservatism, and the parallels to both historical and contemporary left-wing antisemitism. The conversation is sparked by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’s provocative statements and expands into questions of the future of conservatism, the role of Christian Zionists, and what this moment means for Jews, conservatives, and America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Eliana Johnson’s Background & the Conservative Media Landscape

• Eliana shares her professional journey: from the New York Sun, to Fox News, to Politico, and now the Washington Free Beacon (04:45-08:58).
• Reflection on the difference between mainstream and conservative journalism, and why she returns to conservative outlets.
• Touches on conservatism's shifting media alliances and the importance of institutional memory.

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2. The Heritage Foundation’s Crisis & the Normalization of Antisemitism

• John introduces the crisis: Heritage’s Kevin Roberts releases a video perceived as defending not just Tucker Carlson but also the alt-right’s antisemitic talking points (08:58-13:40).
• Christine: Heritage, once merely a “hill-oriented, activist policy institution” (11:03), is now chasing online relevance and radical right-wing audiences.
• John details Heritage’s historical role in providing policy ballast to Republicans – now subverted by Roberts’s culture war posturing (11:30-13:40).

Notable Quote:

"The idea that there is a venomous coalition of people who put the interests of another country, that is Israel, over the interests of the United States... by that he means me and he means you, Eliana, it means Abe and Christine."
— John Podhoretz (09:40)

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3. The Myth of ‘Cancellation’ and Dangerous Equivalences

• Eliana: Heritage’s statements are less reaction to real pressure and more a bid for relevance with Tucker Carlson's and Nick Fuentes’s young, overwhelmingly male audiences (16:53-18:29).
• Abe Greenwald: Breaks down two “tactical lies” being weaponized by the antisemitic right (22:48-26:44):
  1. That any criticism of Israel is instantly labeled antisemitism.
  2. That platforms like Commentary are trying to "cancel" people like Tucker or Fuentes for speech.
• The reality: criticism of Israel is routine, and what’s objected to is outright antisemitism and dangerous conspiracy-mongering, not dissent.

Memorable Explanation:

"When you say that Israel is running a spy program against the US and hunting down enemies of Zionism, that's not a criticism of Israel. That's a wholesale antisemitic fantasy."
— Abe Greenwald (23:28)

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4. The New Right: Platforming Hate for Power and Profit

• Consensus that Heritage and Roberts are courting rising right-wing personalities (Tucker, Fuentes) for political and financial advantage, not genuine ideas (18:29-22:48).
• Discuss how these actors seek to destroy (not build) conservative institutions as part of their anti-establishment pitch (16:53-18:29).
• The “One Voice Policy” at Heritage: once a means to unified messaging, now ironically used to enforce radicalization and drive out dissenters (18:29-19:31).
• John underscores personal disappointment: mother served on Heritage’s board for decades and would have quit over this betrayal (19:31-22:48).

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5. The Buchanan Connection & Historical Parallels

• John situates the current crisis as part of a lineage from Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1990s presidential campaigns—a direct pipeline from “paleocon” antisemitism to today’s “New Right” (19:31-22:48, 43:06-46:35).
• Anti-Israel talking points (e.g., America fights wars “for Israel”) were demonstrably false but persist as zombie ideas, reshaping a new right-wing consensus.

Notable Quote:

“Nick Fuentes is a Nazi. ... He says he’s a Nazi.”
— John Podhoretz (21:41) "This is literally an eight-alarm fire ... because it is being set off on all sides. On all sides."
— John Podhoretz (35:17)

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6. J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson, and Coddling of Extremists

• Vance’s response to direct antisemitic and racist attacks isn’t strong condemnation, but a tepid, political hedging (50:43-55:03).
• Panel is aghast that Vance—potential 2028 GOP frontrunner—won't firmly reject antisemitic lies or insults to his own wife.
• The threat: candidates attempting to “thread the needle” legitimizing extremist questions and rhetoric.

"So to sacrifice his wife on the altar of false charges about Jewish control of the presidency..."
— John Podhoretz (55:03)

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7. Contrast With the Mainstream and Anti-Americanism

• Tucker’s ideological through-line: anti-Americanism, now fused with antisemitism and anti-Zionism (38:25-39:08).
• Historical analogies: Gore Vidal and left-author critiques of America via Israel.
• Christian Zionism and American Exceptionalism: the philosophical roots and how both are now considered “diseased” by the far right (39:08-43:06).
• The effort to excise “Judeo-” from “Judeo-Christian” tradition.

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8. How Should the Right Respond?

• Importance of calling out not just obvious extremists (Fuentes) but also establishment figures enabling this rhetoric (e.g., Carlson) (36:32-38:20).
• Cultural vs. institutional antisemitism: the left’s grew from institutions, the right’s today is anti-institutional, making counter-strategies more complex (63:13-64:37).
• Hope for the conservative grassroots: Trump’s coalition still includes many pro-Israel evangelical voters, a potential brake on further radicalization (64:37-65:38).

Optimistic Notes:

“I was actually pretty heartened by the response to this. ... Many of the major institutions of the Republican Party, many of them and many of the major figures, [were] saying ‘go pound sand’ [to Roberts and the antisemitic fringe].”
— Eliana Johnson (58:09)

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9. What Happens Next?

• Real test will be in the next 2–3 years as aspiring leaders like Vance choose which constituencies to serve (71:13-72:49).
• Whether Roberts keeps his job at Heritage will signal how deeply this rot has penetrated the institutional right (72:05-74:31).
• The stakes: potential for a mainstreaming of antisemitic, anti-American positions in a future GOP presidential platform.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (With Timestamps)

• On the new toxicity:
  “This is the survival of the Jewish people in the United States we’re talking about here.”
  — John Podhoretz (32:13)

• On what “cancellation” really means:
  "I don't want them canceled, I want them ostracized. ... They are trying to mainstream and legitimize discussion points that literally led to the near destruction of my and our people."
  — John Podhoretz (32:10)

• On institutional failure:
  “If any of [the Heritage Board] are listening—you knew my mother. Think about her… then do the right thing.”
  — John Podhoretz (71:13)

• On the misplaced bid for relevance:
  “He saw it as a bid for relevance with the young, largely male Republican leaning types who admire Tucker...”
  — Christine Rosen (16:53)

• On coddling extremists:
  “He [Vance] instantly ceded. They didn’t make demands. And he responded by saying, let's hear ‘em. He actually is on their side.”
  — Christine Rosen (54:52)

• On the enduring power of the actual Right:
  “The pushback against Heritage... came obviously from all the Jewish Zionists we know, but just from an army of Gentile conservative allies and friends as well. ...I think that is the real American Right still.”
  — Abe Greenwald (77:06)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• 04:45—Eliana Johnson’s bio and journey in journalism
• 08:58—Introduction to the Heritage Foundation controversy
• 13:40—Historical overview: Heritage Foundation, Buchanan, paleoconservatism
• 16:53—Motivations behind Roberts/Heritage Foundation’s tactics
• 22:48—Abe’s breakdown of the “two tactical lies” of the anti-Israel right
• 32:10—John’s distinction: ostracizing vs. canceling
• 36:32–38:20—Right’s refusal to criticize Tucker, importance of naming names
• 43:06–46:35—Rewriting Iraq war history, Buchananism, Israel’s role
• 50:43–55:03—J.D. Vance’s troubling response to antisemitic questioners
• 58:09–58:39—Positive: GOP leadership and institutions push back on Heritage/antisemitism
• 63:13–65:38—Institutional vs. anti-institutional antisemitism, implications for the Right’s future
• 71:13–74:31—Will Heritage’s board hold Roberts accountable?

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Closing and Recommendations

• Recommendation (74:31): Eliana recommends Scott Jennings’ (CNN commentator) speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) as a model for forceful, constructive conservative rhetoric—urges listeners to seek it out online.
• Closing segment reflects mixture of hope and vigilance—pride in the pushback from most of the Right, but concern about the normalization and testing of limits by opportunists like Vance and media figures like Carlson.

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Final Takeaways

• The normalization of antisemitism on the Right is at a crisis point, catalyzed by Heritage’s defense of Carlson/Fuentes, but pushback from much of mainstream conservative America offers reason for hope.
• The battle is both institutional (boards, donors, electeds) and cultural (online personalities, influencers).
• The outcome in the next political cycle may determine the direction of American conservatism—and how safe Jewish citizens remain within it.

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For further listening:

• Scott Jennings at the Republican Jewish Coalition event (search “Scott Jennings RJC speech”)

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Tone: Urgent, unsparing, but ultimately determined and at times optimistic.
Style: Forthright, combative, analytic, occasionally personal.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hope.

[A]

For the Expect the worst Some preacher pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going Hope for the best Expect the worst Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily Podcast. Today is Monday, November 3, 2025. I am John Podhorz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald High Apex.

[B]

Hi John.

[A]

Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.

[C]

Hi John.

[A]

And our new permanent panelist along with Seth Mandel, who is not here today, in place of or succeeding Matthew Continetti, whom she also succeeded as editor of the Washington Free Beacon, it is Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[D]

Hi, John.

[A]

So just you've been on this show 600 times, but just for the people who have heard you on the show but may not know your biography, you are an example of somebody who started after graduating from Yale, started in conservative media, went into mainstream media and said, to hell with this. I'm going back to conservative media. Would that be an accurate description? You're a Minnesotan by birth.

[D]

I'm a Minnesotan by birth.

[A]

Here's a funny story, very important story. Eliana's grandmother went to high school with my mother, so. And was the best friend of my aunt. So there's a lot of. It's not incestuous. I don't. What do you call that? It's like Jewish geography. One degree of separation.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[A]

So they're in the yearbook of their high school, which is called. The yearbook was called the Cisian.

[D]

How do you know that?

[A]

And I have no idea why. And when I asked my mother why it was called the Sahisian, she had no idea why. And there we have it. So the sehezian yearbook of 1946 features Eliana's grandmother and my mother in the same yearbook. So that's one thing. And now let's talk about your career.

[D]

Sure. So I have moved between mostly conservative journalism. I started out at the New York sun back in the day in 2006. Did a brief stint working for Walter Russell Mead at the Council on Foreign Relations when I thought maybe I would want to work in foreign policy. Realized that think tank life was not for me. And it's so funny, you know, I remember when I left the New York sun, the great Seth Lipski said to me, are you kidding me? First he called the Council on Foreign Relations a red organization, which is very Seth, and said to me, are you telling me that you are not a newspaper woman? Because you are a newspaper woman. And of course he was right. So I went to work at a think tank for a couple of years, but of course ended up back in news. I really just have always loved the pace of it, how fast paced it is by contrast to think tank world. And so not only have I transitioned between conservative and mainstream journalism, but mostly been in the conservative journalism world, but also between television and print and ended up back in print. So after.

[A]

Or you might say words and images. Right. Because your, your, your major stint in, in the world of written journalism wasn't really in print. Right. It was Politico. So I guess Politico is print for sure. We're then Printing, Web.

[D]

But you're.

[A]

But if you want to call. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm so old that I. The word print, to me means it has to be literally on newsprint.

[D]

Right. I mean, that was the way the song was.

[A]

But you mean repertoire. Right. And then now it isn't. But now or now it's going back to being as it's been revived. But repertorial journalism. You went into rep. When you were at Politico, you were in repertorial journalism, and you were like a scoop machine. You were a scoop machine.

[D]

I've almost always been in repertorial journalism. That's what the Beacon does, too. But after I was at Fox News for three years working in television, and there I was hired as a writer for Sean Hannity. When Hannity and Combs, I think in this case, many of our. I talk to kids a lot, and I'm like, you guys won't even remember Hannity and Combs, which I listened to in high school. But when that ended, they hired a writer of scripts, and I was hired to write scripts. And writing for TV is actually a lot of fun because it's so much like talking and it's so different from the type of writing that all of us typically do. But other than that, I've been in reporting.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Almost always. And the only years I spent in the mainstream were three years covering the first Trump administration at Politico, during which I had a side gig at cnn. And then Politico is in the same building as the Washington Free Beacon. And I would go up and see my friends at the Free Beacon while I was at Politico. And so one day I went up and my current boss, Michael Goldfarb, said to me, is this really what you want to do with the rest of your life?

[A]

People have a habit of saying that to you.

[D]

Yeah. So Continent had taken this job at aei, but hadn't yet left the Beacon. And so Michael Goldfarb said to me, like, look around. Is this really the height of what the height of your existence is going to be like, why don't you come join us here at the Beacon? And that was 2019. And I do consider it the best professional decision that I've ever made. I've moved around a lot. I had a wonderful time at Politico. I think of it 2019, before newsrooms really went crazy in 2020. George Floyd. I had a wonderful three years there. I worked for Kerry Budolph Brown, who was a wonderful boss and worked with a lot of great people at Politico, but I don't regret at all leaving the mainstream media. So I've been at the Beacon for six years now.

[A]

And, you know, this is an auspicious or extremely inauspicious. Inauspicious for the world and for America and for Jewry and American Jewry. It's an inauspicious moment for you to be joining the podcast permanently, but an auspicious moment because this is part of both the writ of commentary and actually the writ of the Free Beacon to have to deal with these questions that have arisen over this weekend and you know, last week through this weekend about the rise of or the mainstreaming or the normalizing of out and out and open anti Semitism and indeed Jew hatred stemming from the Tucker Carlson podcast with Nick Fuentes last week and then the astonishing moment at which the chairman of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, issued a stinging two minute video, which I have to say, I think was partially aimed almost literally at Commentary in the Free Beacon, referring in this defense of Tucker Carlson's rights to free speech as though anybody has ever questioned that he has a right to free speech. The idea that there is a venomous coalition of people who put the interests of another country, that is Israel, over the interests of the United States. And by that he means me and he means you, Eliana. It means Abe and Christine. And that these words should come out of the mouth of the head of the most significant conservative. It's kind of a think tank. It's kind of a support structure for conservative politicians, providing them with talking points and things. It's a, it's not precisely a think tank, though that's the term.

[C]

A clarification on that, because it has been described as the preeminent conservative think tank. Obviously, I think AEI is that fits that role. They have always been a more activist, policy oriented, hill oriented organization. They literally are just a few blocks from Capitol Hill. And since really since Trump's first term with this One voice policy, they that's when I stop thinking, thinking of them as a research institution.

[A]

So important background. Heritage started in either 1973 or 1974 because Ed Fullner and Paul Weyrich realized that conservatives in the House had no structure of support for explaining to their constituents why it was that they were voting for X bill or not voting for Y bill and also wanted to give them advice on which bills to vote for and which not and which conformed with conservative ideas and which didn't. And so they started issuing these three Page two, page three page bulletins essentially describing legislation, saying what was good about it, what was bad about why you should support, why you should not support it, to provide this very, very, very much the minority world of people in the House of Representatives, also in the Senate, but much less important, with some kind of ballast so that they could explain why it was that they didn't like the infrastructure bill of 1975. And it was so successful and it was so useful in that regard that it sort of grew and grew and grew and grew, and then it became a hiring hall for the Reagan administration, raised a huge amount of money. Ed Fullner, who died earlier this year, I believe, and was a wonderful person, and I feel heartsick in his memory that this is happening to the institution that he shepherded for so many years, that Kevin. Kevin Roberts, who came along to be the president three or four years ago, has taken. Taken this. You might say it's a Trumpy turn, but that doesn't even begin to describe. It's an effort to mainstream the views. I would say, or say that what Trump is is the continuation of a series of ideas and views first articulated by Patrick J. Buchanan in his presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. That is the true conservatism. Yeah.

[D]

For anybody who listened to Trump speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas over the weekend, this is decidedly not a Trumpy turn.

[A]

Right.

[D]

This is about that now. This is about. Exactly. I mean, this is about Tucker Carlson and the procession of a group of militant anti Americans through institutions on the right. And I do think it's maybe worth taking a step back. Like John, you said Roberts, his remarks were aimed at commentary and the Free Beacon. And that may be true, but so far as I know, I can speak for the Free Beacon. The Free Beacon has never come out and said, Tucker Carlson shouldn't have a podcast. He should be canceled. He shouldn't be able to talk. Or Nick Fuentes shouldn't be able to go on Rumble and talk to people. You know, this was. It was totally specious. But I do think that this whole debate sort of metastasized or like, blew out into the open after Charlie Kirk's murder because Kirk had been an outspoken Christian Zionist who had, had, had, you know, loving criticisms of Israel. And we saw that in Kirk's letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, where he said, hey, I'm an American Christian Zionist and I love Israel, and you gu screwing things up and you need to make some changes. So after Kirk died, there was, there was and is A war to redefine his legacy. And Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes are trying to rewrite history and claim that he was a vicious Israel hater. Candace Owens, who worked for Turning Point USA and others are trying to redefine that. So Roberts joins the fray. And I was actually puzzled as to why he did this. His statement, and he did subsequent media interviews where he said we were getting enormous pressure to disavow Tucker Carlson. That pressure didn't nobody at the Free Beacon called the Heritage foundation and said, hey, you should issue a statement disavowing Tucker Carlson. Like, I'm pretty sure you didn't call over there, John. I certainly didn't. I've never met Kevin Roberts. And so it seemed to me to be like an answer to a question that nobody really asked, so far as I know. And he decided to plant his flag in the most ridiculous and dramatic way possible with Tucker Carlson and like by proxy, because Tucker Carlson had done a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, with Nick Fuentes. And this now has created enormous stress on the Heritage Foundation. It's a massive self inflicted wound. And, you know, it's probably worth entertaining the arguments he made in his defense in the subsequent days.

[C]

I think one of the motivations he had, quite frankly, is that he has been since taking over Heritage, struggling for relevance. You know, he very much wanted to be seen as a sort of puppet master of second term Trump. And you know, that was Project 2025 in there. And he did get a bit of a brush back from the Trump second term Trump administration. Trump disavowing that or at times sort of saying, no, we're not going in that direction. And I saw his video, I know Kevin a little bit from his Texas Public Policy foundation days. I saw it as a bid for relevance with the young, largely male Republican leaning types who listen, who admire Tucker and who Charlie Kirk really was an important figure. Eliana is right to point that out because he was somehow a bridge. And nobody realized how necessary that bridge was until it was gone. And this is. They're fighting for audience share. They're fighting this, their financial incentives here. And Roberts wants to be seen as leading this new young cohort of enthusiastic, you know, well as we see many of them Nazi sympathizers, so. And that's where it was a misstep. But it is in keeping with the direction he has tried to take this institution. The irony being these, this group he's trying to ally with doesn't care about institutions their entire mission. And Carlson being a very perfect avatar of this is to destroy conservative institutions. And so it's. That's, I think, what's created so much turmoil within Heritage, where we should note, lots of people left after the One voice policy because they wanted to be independent researchers.

[A]

I want to talk about the one.

[C]

Voice policy no longer allowed before aid gets one voice policy, which is. Which is unusual in research institutes.

[A]

They've had it for. They had it for 30 years.

[C]

Yes, but it was starting to be enforced by firing.

[A]

Oh, it was enforced. That's why I think this is a revision. Because, you know, they had a magazine that they basically got rid of, because their idea was that when anything that was labeled Heritage was something that had to be defensible by Heritage, from the person at the top to the. To the secretary. And therefore Heritage would speak with one voice. And so if it said something about welfare, everybody had to agree with it or be silent about it. And that One Voice policy was in place in the 90s and in the 80s.

[C]

But we had a lot of people leave Heritage after first term. Trump starting to reinforce, in a very politicized way, we have refugees from Heritage at AEI now, people who just could no longer abide that enforcement.

[A]

My point is you could. Heritage ran with a one voice policy for 30 years. Trump, the Trump administration, and then the response to the loss of the election in 2020 and January 6th. You know, these were dividing. These were moments that divided the right and Heritage. Essentially, the Heritage leadership was before Roberts got there, decided to be agnostic to supportive of the idea that the election had been stolen or whatever. And that was a bridge too far for many people. But I want to bring. Bring this back to Buchanan just for a second, and then we can pull out. So, because Heritage marriage, I mean, I have very personal feelings about. My mother was on the heritage board for 40 years. My mother died three years ago. If she knew, if she had been alive to see this, not only would she have, if she had still been on the board, quit in three seconds, but, I mean, she was very dedicated and devoted to it as an institution. I had my problems with it, always did. But I thought Fullner was a very good man and a very serious person and was to be taken seriously. Roberts has run Heritage over the last four years with an eye toward, as you were sort of saying, establishing it as the. No one is getting to my right in the idea game on the right. No one's getting to my right. If there is a position that can be staked out that is definable as the right. I'm not letting anybody pop up. Some punk gunfighter is not going to come into town and challenge me, you know, to a duel. I'm going to outflank him and make sure he doesn't even come to town. And that, of course, is, I think, what is the necessary understanding that precedes what happened this week with him effectively defending somebody who said that Christian Zionism is a brain disease and that he hates Israel and then platforms. A Nazi. Nick Fuentes is a Nazi. I mean, he's not a member of the National Socialist Party, but he is a Nazi. He says he's a Nazi. He said that JD Vance was race mixing by marrying somebody from. With a South Asian background whom he called a jeet, questioning his heterosexuality, which is comic in its own way. I mean, sort of like a deliberate provocateur who is a brown shirt and is attempting to sort of establish brown shirtry in America. And Roberts impulse was to defend the saliency of these views, even if he disagreed with some of them, on the grounds that not allowing them to be said would be censorship. And we're just doing what the left is doing. That's. Can I jump in here? Jump in.

[B]

So there are two lies. Well, there are many, many lies that are being asserted by the Israel haters and the anti Semites on the right and Tucker and Fuentes and their whole crew. But there are two tactical lies that they've been pushing since before Charlie Kirk's death, but certainly since Charlie Kirk was killed. One is that they're going around saying that if you just criticize Israel one little bit, you are called an anti Semite. Okay? This is not true at all. We criticize Israel, we criticize Israeli policies. Sometimes we criticize Bibi, sometimes we criticize Bibi's enemies. There are. The whole world has spent two years criticizing Israel and more than two years, and no one, not me. I'm a devout Zionist. It is perfectly fine to criticize Israel. When you say that Israel is running a spy program against the US and hunting down enemies of Zionism, that's not a criticism of Israel. That's a wholesale anti Semitic fantasy. And that is an entirely different thing. Okay? That's lie number one, which puts them in the victim position. I can't say anything because if I say one word, I suddenly I'm an anti Semite and that's the worst thing. Everyone has to shut up, okay? The other victim tactical lie that they say is they're telling me that I can't talk to people. I can't talk to this one. I can't talk to that one. I don't believe. I've always believed that the greatest disinfectant is sunlight. And we need to expose these ideas. You can talk to these people, including Nick Fuentes. Primetime TV has been having Nazis and Klan members on TV since my entire life. That's not what you're doing. You are elevating them. That is what we have a problem with. Of course you can talk to them and call them out on their lunacy, on their ahistoricity, on anything you want. What you are doing is elevating, embracing and normalizing Nazism. That's what we're talking about. No one is saying don't talk to people. And I think part of reaction to this statement in support of Tucker has to do. And the reaction I think was pretty strong from conservatives who aren't in the swamp, aren't in the, in the crate, in the fringe has to do with the flimsiness of these defenses. We all know that it's not true. And the second that Roberts got called out in an interview, who is it who did that great breakdown and the sec, she tried to tease out these distinctions that I'm making. As someone said online, yeah, yeah, yeah, Roberts like glitched. You know, he couldn't, he, he absolutely couldn't defend himself at all because this is made up garbage.

[A]

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[B]

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[D]

Abe Just to add to that, so Roberts, he makes this video statement on Thursday and I do think Christine is right. This is about like this is a bid for, you know, the Charlie Kirk audience of young men, the Tucker Carlson audience of young men, the Nick Fuentes audience of young men. So he goes to do like cleanup on aisle Nazi and he does an interview with Dana Lesh, he does an interview with Ben Domenech and he did an interview with Real Clear Politics with Philip Wegman. And he makes a couple of arguments. First he says, you know, among most people my statement was really well received, which is like obviously why he's going to do spending the whole day Friday doing a cleanup and issuing a follow up about how he really abhors Nick Fuentes and here's what he objects to. So he starts off just being entirely dishonest. Like obviously you don't reassign your chief of staff, which is another thing we can get to. But he Reassigned his chief of staff and do three. He did the full Ginsburg to try to clean it up if your statement was really well received. But then he makes this argument that we can't cancel these people, which he's using the term wrong because nobody was arguing to take away their platforms because that will only make them more popular. If we cancel Nick Fuentes, he'll just be more popular. And the whole weekend. I was joking. Like, please come cancel the free Beacon, Kevin, because we just want to be more popular. Cancel me, Kevin. And we've watched people be actually canceled. Okay? Matt Lauer was canceled. Charlie Rose was canceled. You know, there have been a litany of people canceled during the MeToo movements. New York Times journalists were canceled. A lot of these people were literally never heard from again.

[A]

Okay?

[D]

There is not like some massive Matt Lauer uprising. This is the most specious BS argument.

[A]

I'm gonna take the argument further out. I don't like him saying that we're trying to cancel Tucker or Nick Fuentes.

[D]

Ridiculous.

[A]

I don't want to cancel.

[D]

It's ridiculous.

[A]

No, but hold on. I want them ostracized. I want them removed from the conversation. I don't. Cancelation is something that happens to people who, you know, say the wrong thing. They are. They are trying to mainstream and legitimize discussion points that are. That literally led to the near destruction of my and our people. That is not a joke. Like, that is not. This is not something that should be common discourse. It can exist. You can interview George Lincoln Rockwell, who is the head of the Klan. Famously Alex Haley, who wrote Roots, did a big interview with George Lincoln Rockwell. You can Buckley hat on Klansmen and Nazis on firing line. You can do that in part to tease out where they are and who they are. But there are the question here is what the hell is happening in America? That we have an anti Semitic socialist Muslim probably about to win the mayoralty of New York City, establishing the normalcy of views about Israel that are not only lies and false like that Israel committed a genocide in a population that is growing in Gaza and where kids are graduating from high school during a war and there was plenty of food. That's a lie that there's a genocide and it's a lie that the IDF's boot is that the behavior of the NYPD is owing to the lessons of the Israel Defense Forces. He's about to win the the mayoralty of New York City. And on the right people who share these views are trying to establish that they are the leading Edge of opinion on the right. And so this, what Mike Cote called in our magazine, this the anti Semitic horseshoe we have, we have to stop it. Like, I can't make common cause with this. So this heritage is going to not say that this the things that Tucker Carlson says and that Nick Fuentes said, even though he said, I abhor Nick Fuentes, but Tucker is my friend, Tucker agrees with Nick Fuentes. So if he's not willing to say they abhor, I am going to go to war with him. I am going to call everybody I know who gives money to heritage and demand that they stop giving money to heritage. So this is actually, this is the survival of the Jewish people in the United States we're talking about here. And we saw what happened when Jewish communities in Europe did not have the power to stand up and try to snuff this out, when they had the cultural standing to do so. And they didn't and they couldn't and they wouldn't and they didn't have the strength to do so. And this isn't, this is an eight alarm fire that is going on here because it's being set off on all sides. On all sides.

[D]

Well, John, you're getting to a point that I think is important, which is, you know, Roberts referred to a venomous coalition trying to sow discord on the right without addressing the fact that essentially Tucker Carlson devotes his show to criticizing people on the right who don't share his views, accusing, calling Christian Zionists the worst people in the United States, accusing them of having a brain virus. Nick Fuentes was threatening J.D. vance and saying that if he disavows Fuentes, he will go campaign against him in Iowa. Fuentes, as you mentioned, calling Vance a race traitor and attacking his children. So the position is essentially that they are allowed to attack people on the right, but those of us who share our views are not allowed to criticize them. And like that is just not a place like that. We can't abide that.

[C]

Well, this is unacceptable. This is where I will note that this is why it's important on the right that people like Roberts criticize Fuentes, but not Tucker Carlson. And we have a lot of people on the right who issued very long statements on social media this weekend without naming and calling out Tucker Carlson. Because Elian is absolutely right. What he is doing is platforming and tacitly endorsing because he's very canny about it. I went and listened to a bunch of his stuff over the weekend and he does it in a. He's very smart and he's very sophisticated about how he shapes things. He always tries to build in a little plausible deniability so that he actually isn't as bad as Fuentes. But here he gives him a platform and doesn't push back. But will, you know, absolutely harass Ted Cruz when Ted Cruz.

[D]

We're still waiting on him to circle back to the Stalin thing.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

And he's like, oh really? Like I'll circle back to that. So, you know, I'll let you guys know if Tucker ever circles, ever circles back.

[C]

But he. But that is why this is a moment of choosing for people on the right and why we should hold their feet to the flames and say if you have a connection to this institution, which this is the difference. The other cancellation point institutions canceled their own and booted them out. This is a case of an institution desperately running to try to join an anti institutional group of people who are wildly anti Semitic. And that is a different direction. So you can't actually cancel these people. That's why Roberts talking about cancellation is just a way to dodge responsibility for what he is doing, which is also his institution financially supporting Tucker Carlson show with over $1 million worth of advertisement buys in this, this past year. So there is a lot of incentive here to try to ally pointing to someone to this particular platformer Tucker Carlson. And that's got to stop. And that will, I think Elian is right that Vance is going to actually have a choice to make there too. Because Tucker's not going to stop.

[A]

Right.

[D]

It's not anti Semitic, is anti American.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

Tucker is praising Maduro and he's praising Gulf monarchies and he's in a Russian supermarket saying how clean and wonderful and well run this country is and that Vladimir Putin is the most popular leader in the world. There's a nexus between these two things. And sure, like anti Semitism is the logical. It's the on ramp for these other things. But there's a through line in Carlson's programming. You know, he's interviewing the president of Iran and it was a Fuentes like interview where he's not asking him a lot of challenging questions. The through line is anti Americanism.

[A]

And you know, Gore Vidal in the early 1980s, also a, you know, a far leftist novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, a virulent anti Semite. Virulent anti Semite and hated America. And when people said because you hate America because he wrote essays about how America was an evil country that slaughtered people all over the world to feed its own greedy sense of self. And he would say, I'm sure this is what Tucker would say engaged in this conversation. He said, you know, hate America. I am its biographer. How could I hate the country of who that I am the most profound biographer of? Because he wrote a book about Lincoln and he wrote a book about Aaron Burr, and he wrote a book about Washington in the 1850s, wrote these historical novels that are garbage. Whatever, fine. I think they're garbage. People liked them at the time. But he was trying to make himself unassailable on the grounds that, you know, he is more American than all these Jews who are criticizing him. And that is un American, and that is anti. It is anti American to assert your American ness against Americans whose families may have been here a few decades, you know, later than your family was here, or something like that. I bring this up only to say that that was gore Vidal in 1980 talking and likening Israel's monstrosity to America's monstrosity. And what is important here is that we are getting to a point at which being hostile to Israel is a key element of being hostile to the United States or to the American experiment. Now, that would seem to suggest that Christian Zionism and American exceptionalism have got it right. Because the whole point here is they're linking America and Israel with their rhetoric, with their views, with their. This is something that we've done, you know, that the classic American exceptionalism argument about America and Israel is America was born out of an idea and Israel was born out of an idea. And these are the two countries in the world that you can say were born out of ideas. And the ideas have the same root, which is the Judeo Christian heritage and tradition. And they are therefore similar. And so basically the Tucker Carlson Nick Fuentes world, not that Nick Fuentes is lettered enough to understand what I'm saying here is a bizarro world image of lovers of America and lovers of Israel. They also agree that the two are connected. But what they think is that it's poison, Israel's poison and America's poison.

[C]

Well, and then there's a contingent that want to excise the Judeo from the Judeo Christian. So they maybe are. And that is also a group on the right, you know, sort of who. Who. And that's actually a group that Vance needs in the. In his future coalition if he's going to run. So that, I mean, I do think that there is that anti American sentiment among some of the more extreme ones. But then there's a broader middle that's like we are Christian first, and we don't. We don't put Israel or any other countries think. And they are trying not to separate that tradition, which I think is also very dangerous.

[A]

But that's also fine. This is, I think, what Abe is saying, like, I am an American first. I mean, what about America is that it was supposed to be that we weren't gonna have to make these choices in the United States. But I'm an American first. If Israel were doing things that were injurious to America's interests, I would object. I was very much opposed to the release of Jonathan Pollard, who was an American spy for Israel. And I thought it was shameful that the Israeli government spent as much time, effort, and this is, by the way, multipartisan in Israel trying to secure Pollard's release. He was a traitor to the United states. He took $160,000 to give American secrets to Israel. This was a wake up call for Israel that it was playing games and playing footsie with the United States that it should not. And it stopped doing it. And I have no problem saying that America's interests are superior. I just happen to think that those interests largely harmonize. And to the extent and mostly Israel should be let alone like Israel. Whatever what Israel does to secure its own safety and security and all of that America, there's actually political consensus that supports that. That's why Israel has had, you know, four, 45 years of very substantial American support from the Congress and even administrations. But mostly it's just let Israel be. Israel shouldn't play. Israel plays too large a role in American politics. It's a country of 9 million people that is trying to secure its own future and the future for its own people. And it's only a major subject of discussion because of its opponents, its supporters. I don't need Israel to be topic number one in foreign policy in the United States consistently over the last 45 years. It's only like that because it's the subject, because it connects to Jews and Jewry and the history of Jewry and that kind of thing, which is also why it's so troubling. Kevin Roberts, in advocating last month for a Medal of Freedom for Pat Buchanan from Trump, was a significant thing. It is the precursor to some of this because they want to establish an alternate history timeline in which Pat Buchanan ran against George H.W. bush in 1991, 1992, because of his opposition to the Gulf, the first Gulf War, which was us intervening to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, which he had swallowed up, an effort in which 52 countries on this planet participated in which fewer than 100 people of 100Americans died, that was wholly successful in small bore and that we ended up making a profit on because other countries paid us basically for having fought it and you know, paid for the arms and weaponry and all of that. But to people like Pat Buchanan, who said tens of thousands of Americans were going to die and that we were only doing this for Israel, which was.

[B]

Told to stand down against any retaliation attacks.

[A]

That's right. So when. Right. So George. So James BAKER and George H.W. bush, when the scuds fluid Israel from Saddam Hussein was his only sort of like counterplay as we went to war with him. And you know, Yitzhak Shamir, the Prime Minister was told do not retaliate. And for the first. And Israel grudgingly agreed it was being attacked directly by missiles from another country. And it, it exceeded to America's demand that it not get involved because it was going to complicate the politics of the coalition. But people like Buchanan, people like. And this movement that he started to lead characterized this war by the most anti Israel president that the country had yet seen up to that point. George H.W. bush as a war for Israel gave the game away. And he and this counter movement that then opposed the Gulf War, opposed the second Gulf War and said the same stuff about Israel and the second war with Iraq, which is that we were fighting it for Israel. And as I've said on the podcast before, but I'm actually sitting in Israel as I'm speaking to you right now. In 2003, I was here for my nephew's bar mitzvah and I went around and talked to Israelis for about a week, various journalists, government officials, stuff like that. And to a man, this was In January of 2003, they were saying to me, why are you going to war with Iraq? This is crazy. Don't go. If you're going to go to war, go to war with Iran. Iran is the threat. Iran is the leading sponsor of terrorism. Iran is trying to get nukes. Iran is the most destabilizing country in the world. Go out. Why are you going after Iraq? It had nothing to do with 9 11. And that's what Israel was saying to me contemporaneously while Pat Buchanan, the American conservative and all of these what we now think of as national conservatives or paleo conservatives or anti neocons were telling me that America was going to war for Israel. Israel didn't want America to fight Iraq in 2003, John.

[B]

Not only were Israelis telling you. Ariel Sharon was telling Bush.

[A]

Yeah, everybody. Yes, but. So they've spun this counter history that the neocons made the war with Iraq the second war through both wars with Iraq to help Israel. Israel didn't want the help. Israel wasn't looking for the help. Israel, by the way, didn't really care that Saddam Hussein swallowed up Kuwait, by the way.

[C]

So this. But this, this is the problem. They believe that counter history and the young men in particular, who have not studied the actual foreign policy story of either the first or second Iraq war, believe that story. And very powerful people on the right. I will definitely call out JD Vance and an answer he gave to a question recently about just this question about do we support Israel too much. He chose to side not with the truth and not with actual history, but the question, it was a turning Point USA event at Ole Miss. And he said, a man in a hoodie, young man who said, as a Christian, why has the US Supported Israel? And here's what the young man asked. Considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours, but also openly supports the prosecution of ours. And so Vance chose at that moment, and we know Vance is smart. Vance chose to say that when people say Israel's manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they're not controlling this president. And he said nothing to swat down, you know, some of the other lies. This kid's question is that, to me, is a very important moment because he had the ability. He doesn't. He could be very clear and very straightforward with these kids. They're obviously all there, you know, to see him. And he chose to speak in that particular way that is him trying to thread a needle that should not be thread and really eventually cannot be thread.

[B]

By the way, he could have done what we've seen Charlie Kirk do a billion times when faced with carbon copies of that, of that questioner. Take apart the whole anti Semitic conspiracy theory.

[A]

It's worse than that. It's way worse than that.

[B]

Because.

[D]

Better than that.

[A]

Go ahead, you do your.

[D]

It's worse than that. And then I'll be. I never get to be like kitties and rainbows. So you do. It's worse than that.

[A]

I'm excited for you. I'm excited for you here.

[D]

Right?

[A]

That's why. That's why we wanted you here, because you're the positive. You're so positive. You're always so positive. But. Okay, so here's my point. Here's the thing, Vance. There is Nick Fuentes out there, right Supposedly very, you know, getting popularity, and he's got these followers, millions of followers, and Tucker's trying to win over his audience. They're having a fight for audience. Nick Fuentes said that ushavants was a jeet, which is actually a term I did not know.

[C]

It's a slur. It's a.

[A]

It's a racial. I didn't actually.

[C]

It's terrible.

[A]

No, it.

[B]

Racism.

[A]

Yeah. What?

[B]

I never heard it either. To our credit, you know, so would know these things.

[A]

Race mixing with a non Christian jeet and what. And, you know, ordinarily I wouldn't talk about, you know, Vance's wife or she seems like a remarkable person and all that, but. And, you know, who am I to talk about somebody else's marriage? But, like, if I were her, if I were she or if I were Vance, like, I would have gone ballistic. I would have said, what you said is disgusting. Come say that directly to my face, you little twerp. You know, I fought for this country while you were sitting in your basement masturbating, and I will beat the crap out of you. And don't you talk about my wife that way. And instead, he did this. I love my wife. And you know, she does. She does profess a faith different from mine, and I hope one day that I can bring her to the love of Jesus that I have. But like many people in America, we have an interfaith marriage. And this is, you know, I have just the greatest. It's like, what are you doing? This disgusting goon, like, is throwing feces at your wife. And because you're, like, trying to weasel your way into the 2028 nomination by making yourself inoffensive to people like him, you're gonna sit there and take it. Does no one remember how small the other candidates looked next to Trump in 2015 and 2016 when he went at their families and their wives in order to destabilize and throw them off their game in those debates, like, they didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to respond. They were, you know, they were like, open mouth. And this is Christine's point, is he's a destructive force. He doesn't want to help. He's not gonna help. There's no help. He's a purely negative force in the United States. He's trying to destroy institutions, not only all the conservative institutions, but the president, also America and the presidency, and turn them into. I don't. Who even knows what he wants. It doesn't even matter what he wants. He's not going to get what he wants. But along the way, it's like the 60s in this sense, which is Vance was acting a little bit like a university president whose office was occupied by terrorists. It's like, you know, this is not the way to go about and you know, we, what, what do you, what are you, what are you interested? What are your demands? I mean, let's, let's, let's be reasonable here as opposed to saying, I'm getting someone to come into this office and throw tear gas at you.

[C]

He instantly ceded. They didn't make demands. And he responded by saying, let's hear him. He actually is on their side. He signaled to them immediately that he was on their side of the argument, at least about Israel with his wife.

[A]

But so to sacrifice his wife on the altar of false charges about Jewish control of the presidency. Was he not present for the Obama presidency? Was he not present for, you know, where, what, what is this? Like, that's why you say it's an eight alarm fire.

[C]

It's a coddling of extremism.

[A]

Can I, let me now, can you be positive now? Yes. Okay.

[D]

So John, you mentioned Mamdani a little earlier. And Mamdani is the, he's like the culmination of, you know, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. He's certainly not the first figure on the left to like in this form to appear. There are lots of them like this. And I have to say, like Kevin Roberts put out this video on Thursday, I would guess, I don't think, based on the response that the Heritage foundation is like happy with where it's at, based on the response to this. This is a real crisis for the Heritage foundation now. And I think that says positive things about actually where we're at on the right. Of course it's bad. He did this. It says bad things that this could ever come of a conservative, that the leader of a conservative institution, a, that he was put in the job in the first place, that he would issue this statement. But I wouldn't say it was well received over the weekend. Our friend Dominic Green had a fantastic op ed in the Wall Street Journal last night. The Wall Street Journal editorial board issued a phenomenal editorial denouncing Roberts and Carlson and others. And it just so happened this happened. Like, who knows if they timed it this way, but the Republican Jewish Coalition had its annual meeting in Las Vegas. Ted Cruz gave wonderful remarks there, as did other United States senators. Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania was out there pushing back on all of this and it struck me, I started to think, who in the Democratic Party has pushed back as forcefully as members of the Republican Party did just this weekend against this nonsense? Have we heard a speech from Chuck Schumer, Akin to the one that we heard Ted Cruz give this weekend? Mitch McConnell came out and condemned the Heritage Foundation.

[A]

So, yeah, okay, fair enough.

[D]

I wouldn't say, like, I was actually pretty heartened by the response to this. And I don't think actually the event that came to mind was Nancy Pelosi's.

[A]

Attempt.

[D]

Maybe in 2018 when Ilhan Omar put out a tweet about AIPAC 2019, all about 2019, it's all about the Benjamins. And she tried to bring a resolution to the House floor to condemn that language and she couldn't get it over the finish line. And what ended up happening was a general resolution condemning, you know, it was the typical anti, Semitism, all the forms of hate.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Pelosi couldn't do it. And I think what we saw over the weekend was basically like the major institutions of the Republican Party, many of them and many of the major figures saying go pound sand.

[A]

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[E]

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[A]

Okay, you know what? I accept your kitties and balloons and, you know, rainbows. Except for Vance. Except that Vance is standing there. And Vance is the likely 2028 Republican nominee for president. He's the most important politician in the Republican Party aside from Donald Trump. And he is in bed with these people. And if we don't get him out of bed with these people, if Usha Vance doesn't get him out of bed with these people because he's willing to defame, he's willing to be silent in the face of her defamation, the, the victory here will be short lived. And the problem with the moving of the Overton window is that mainstreaming takes time. Normalizing takes time. Somehow these views got normalized in the Democratic Party because of the universities and various other things. So that by the time Nancy Pelosi tried to do it in 2019, the world that she thought she was representing, which was conventional Democratic opinion about wild anti Semitism coming from a freshman congressman whom she didn't need thought was just going to be nothing but trouble for her and discovered that her caucus, the Democratic caucus, was not willing to do enemies on the left, was not willing to, to say that this was unacceptable. That also meant that, you know, like, you know, the line had been crossed that could not be uncrossed. And my fear is without this being built on this weekend's like, revulsion response being built on by 2028. JD Vance is Ilhan Omar. JD Vance is Rashida Tlaib, JD Vance's Zoram Hamdani. And he will be the nominee of the party.

[C]

And that, that's, I do think that's what he's feeling out right now with the way he's been behaving recently because all of the organizations on the left were Organizations, they were institutions. Academia is an institution. It's a bureaucracy. Congress is an institution. The left's antisemitism grew up through roots in those institutions. This is not institutional. It is anti institutional. And it every time the Wall Street Journal condemns these guys, they praise, they're ecstatic because that proves to them their outsider rebellious status and they gain those younger followers as a result. So I think Eliana is right to see the optimism in the leadership immediately denouncing this. Some of them I would like to see. But, but that's why again, to come back to the Tucker Carlson point, they look to Tucker. Tucker is the only institution those guys recognize and he did come out of the mainstream conservative institutional world and has gone to the other side and he will. And I think there are others in that orbit that might succumb to the money and the fame and the, the reaction they'll get from doing the same. So I think it's not just a matter of policing our conservative institutions, places like Heritage and our elected officials. We have to get more thoughtful about how to counter that cultural message because that's where Vance is seeing opportunity rather than what he should be seeing, which is something to be very concerned about for his own and our country's political future.

[D]

Well, I do think in certain ways these people are the enemy of the heart of the Trump coalition. The heart of the Trump coalition is white, non college educated evangelical voters who may not pay close attention to foreign policy, but they actually do very much like Israel. And that's less relevant in a primary when you need to politic to the right. But that is the heart of the Trump coalition. And those voters are swing voters. The Republican presidential candidate's share of that vote has fluctuated wildly over the years and Trump way overperformed with that vote. So in a general election, those orders are quite important. And they care a lot about Israel, they don't care about Ukraine. I'm actually doing a Council on Foreign Relations study group about the view of these voters on various foreign policy issues. But these people like Israel.

[A]

You know, I'm here and I have to say one final point before we get to Eliana's first recommendation is I was in, I'm in Tel Aviv. I was in what Kaplan Square, which is, which was Hostage Square or Hostages Square, which they're trying to rename. But on Saturday night there was the usual post Shabbat demonstration. Now the demonstration has shifted to being about getting the remains of the, of the hostages home. But the tone of the demonstration remains exactly what it was for two years. Which is, which is a version of saying you're supporting the hostages and you're supporting, you know, and you're, and you're, you want them to bring them home now and then, alternately, just like being a kind of hate session about the government and Netanyahu and others in the coalition, which is what speakers were talking about. But everybody loves Trump. And one of the hostages who spoke, who was really somebody who lost £300 or like £200 in captivity, was taken on October 7, was standing there and thanked Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Kushner, and to President Donald Trump. I would not be here, would it, if he did not showed the leadership and the crowd. 15,000 people probably roared. They love him. And, you know, it used to be if. And Trump loves them because they love him, and Trump loves Israel because he loves the response he gets there and he loves the deal that he made. This is the one place apparently where you are not demanded. Fealty, to Trump's view is not only not demanded, but there seems to be a free wheeling ability on the part of these extremists led by Tucker, to attack him openly. So that's what you got to ask yourself. Why is it that they feel no fear of Trump's anger? And I think it's because they think they own Vance, and Vance better figure out whether or not that is true. And if he figures out that it's true and he wins the nomination, with that being part of his base position, that America and Israel need to split because Israel's interests do not align with America's interests. And, and you know, the Jews are controlling things. I don't even know how you want to lay it out. If he runs without explicitly disavowing that set of ideas, but essentially runs with those in his pocket and wins, then that is going to be a very frightening message because as I said, it's also an anti American message. It is a message about how America is so weak that it can be poisoned by this foreign disease brought, you know, that that was somehow brought is unnatural to America, which is the brain disease of Zionism, or in Tucker's case, Christian Zionism, I assume. If Christian Zionism is a brain disease, I don't know what Zionism that isn't Christian is. It must be, you know, like, you know, lung cancer. I mean, I don't know what he, what he would call it if it's not a brain disease. So this is, I want to believe that the, that the Republican Party has held or that the right has Held. But it's the behavior of the voters and the behavior of the leaders who are looking to be the head of the party, you know, be the voices of the party in the future that are gonna. That are gonna make this clear to us. And so we're in this kind of weird interregnum period. We're not gonna know until 2026 how these messages play with voters. We may learn something interesting tomorrow night in the New York City election, which, of course, is gonna literally have probably twice the turnout of any election in the last 15 years. And Mamdani is running not all that dissimilarly on issues from Bill de Blasio, who won because of low turnout, not because of high turnout. And we're trying to figure out, as we look at the Mamdani race, what the high turnout means. And the Mamdani propagandists say, and they may be right, that this is a sign that he has unprecedented passionate support. Or it could be that something is happening here where the turnout. A lot of the turnout that we're seeing we've seen in this incredible early vote is. People are going, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. What. How did this happen? How did this happen with this guy running our city? I don't think it's going to happen, but it may happen. And then there are going to be a lot of interesting lessons to be learned. But for the Republicans, 2020, we're not going to know any of the answers to these questions until 2027. And we'll know also how stalwart some of the stalwart people who have been making these statements really are, because some of them are involved in the Heritage Foundation. And basically, if they don't, if Roberts is still standing two weeks from now, that's not going to be a good sign either, because that means that his board will say that his behavior was acceptable, and it's not, and it wasn't, and it isn't. And as I said, my mother, you know, and if any of them are listening, you knew my mother. Think about her. Think about my mother sitting and listening to Kevin Roberts and then do the right thing.

[D]

Let me push back on that just a tiny bit on if Roberts is still in the job. You know, we have you and I know a couple of people on the Heritage board. I don't know most of the people, but the board put. Put this guy in the job. It's not like he was an unknown entity. So, you know, I wouldn't make too much of. If Roberts is still in, in the job in a couple of.

[A]

It's a small board, though.

[D]

It's a small board. But like, these are the people who put this guy in the job. And there have been a lot of red flags, shall we say, over the past several years. So I'm not like, I wouldn't, I don't, I don't think.

[A]

I take, look, I take your point, but I'm just. This, this, this took things in the, in a, in a, to a point place that they should not be taken to, and they will be complicit in the idea that what he said was not sufficient unto the day to mean that he should no longer be the steward of the institution for which they have responsibility as members of the board of trustees. That's all I'm saying. And, and we'll see. We'll just see. Because, you know, there are. I know. I don't know four. I know four people on the board and I as well. Well, or know them at all. And, you know, I would be very surprised if there was an actual board meeting that they, if they were put in the position of having to choose, that they would choose. They would say that it was okay for him to still be there. But how do I know? I don't know if I said something of some sort as awful in my own way or in relation to things in my own way here as there as, as, you know, as Kevin Roberts. I would expect the commentary board to demand my resignation. I mean, I can't quite frame what that would be, but there is certainly a world in which I would know that if I said something I was going somewhere that I should not go. All right, Eliana, you do have a recommendation, and we don't want to establish that. You know, we have to go on for two hours every time we have a podcast, which we've been distending over the last couple of weeks.

[D]

Anyway, I do have a recommendation. I was paying attention to the remarks delivered at the Republican Jewish Coalition's confab in Las Vegas over the weekend because of events at the Heritage foundation on Thursday and on Friday. And I highly recommend listening to just Google Scott Jennings, rjc. The CNN commentator, media personality Scott Jennings delivered what I thought was a remarkable speech. It's about half an hour, but it is entertaining all the way through. And it's a serious speech. Normally we get to see Scott on CNN just owning the libs, but this is much. This is not owning the libs. It's really a serious speech that I think it's well worth your time.

[A]

I love Scott Jennings. Scott Jennings, as a conservative speaker, I don't know how to describe as a conservative combatant in the popular culture. Scott Jennings is the unalloyed superstar of the last two years.

[B]

And.

[A]

He is just, I can't watch the show with him on it because it's too annoying, but I certainly see his clips and, and anyway, he's, he's a pretty amazing. I wouldn't call him a fine because he worked in Republican politics forever and he worked for Mitch McConnell and, and so, you know, he's like a, he's a, he's a Washington presence. He's been a Washington presence for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. But, but he is a, you know, we need, we need people who aren't just, what would you call them? Just like sort of hacks, you know, like just saying, you know, delivering the, the Trump administration line on everything, but are able to make actual arguments and counter arguments against liberal conventional opinion. And, and it's a pleasure watching him. I know, Abe, you're a, you're a, you're a Jennings, Stan. Sure.

[B]

But also, I would add that because of everything going on, I lived on Twitter over the weekend and there are a lot of wonderful conservatives out there. That is part of why I'm very uncharacteristically heartened, like Eliana, is about the response, because the pushback against Heritage, against Robert's statement came obviously from all the Jewish Zionists we know out there, but just from an army of gentile conservative allies and friends as well. And I just thought it was wonderful. I think that is the real American right still.

[A]

I mean, it's funny because I guess just after October 7th, the thing that was so shocking and upsetting to American liberal Jews who were shooting, shaken to their core by what happened and what I heard from so many of them, friends of mine who then underwent a political journey not unlike this or neoconservative journey of the late 60s and early 70s, who kept saying, where are my friends? Where did my friends go? Like, what? I was with them. I was with, you know, I, when they said X. And I'm feeling very abandoned by my non Jewish friends who were, who seem to be, you know, college professors and this and that, who seem to be, you know, uncaring about what happened to my people. And so I don't want to make light of what I'm saying here about the Overton window and everything. Like, I think you and Eliana point out that I don't think that we have any reason to feel that way about our friends on the Right. Because the people that I don't like or people who have disgusted me are pretty much the same people who've been disgusting me for the last five or 10 years. Much more since October 7th. But, I mean, it's not like I don't know who they are and that they're somehow any more exposed than I thought they were. But, yeah, seeing people. And again, at some risk to their own standing, maybe at some risk to their jobs, but saying, I can't countenance this. This is. This is literally anathema to everything I believe. And, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, you're right to thank them.

[B]

And they're not just out.

[A]

No. They should know the gratitude that we feel for them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Being there for us.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. I want to.

[A]

And for America, by the way, because I don't want to just say making this. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

[B]

Yeah, I was going to say they're not just our friends in what they're writing and tweeting. And at that, they very clearly recognize what going down this road means for the idea of America and for the future of America, and they very clearly are horrified at the prospect of the experiment being so ruinously poisoned by this stuff.

[A]

Okay, well, that was a barn burner of a first show for regular Eliana Johnson. Coming up on the. Coming up on the. You know, you know, on the. Whatever you call that in horse racing. Coming up, unexpectedly, with the good cheer on. On her late lamented podcast with Chris star Walt. Chris was always complaining that she was. She was so negative. And here she is, like, now establishing the positive. This is great. I'm not forcing you to be positive every time.

[C]

She was not negative on Angstein Wretches. She was just right most of the time.

[A]

That's right. That's right.

[D]

Thank you, Christine.

[A]

Because the theme was what's gone right and wrong with the American news media? And basically, you did the wrong. Anything ever went right. And Chris, whom I love, would be like, well, there was a really great story about a Social Security office in Omaha that, you know, really runs well and that kind of thing. Or someone did a really great story about someone getting a cat out of a tree. And then you're like, oh, come on. Like, he's right. Those stories are charming. But, yeah, so you're not going to have to worry because we're all. We're all incredibly, you know, depressed. Depressed and pessimistic here. So anyway, we'll be back tomorrow. So for Christine, Abe and Eliana, John Pothorz keep the candle burning.