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- [00:04]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:11]
Abe Greenwald
Some preach and pain Some die of.
- [00:14]
John Podhoretz
Thirst the way of knowing which way.
- [00:18]
Abe Greenwald
It'S going Hope for the best Expect the worst Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, April 30, 2025. I am John Pothor. It's the ed of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:37]
Matthew Continetti
Hi.
- [00:37]
Abe Greenwald
John Washington, Commentary columnist and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [00:45]
John Podhoretz
Hi, John.
- [00:46]
Abe Greenwald
And Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:48]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:49]
Abe Greenwald
One of the most important events of our lifetime took place today, 50 years ago today. That was the conclusion of the war in Vietnam that ended with American helicopters scrambling off the roof of the embassy in Saigon. As Saigon fell, an image, indelible image of the most powerful country in the world laid very low. And I think it's fair to say that the politics of the subsequent 50 years, in almost every direction in the United States, in every direction domestically, about how Americans view America and American power, how politicians responded to the event, this cataclysmic and soul crushing event dominated our politics for a half century. A country loses a war and the consequences are generations long. I think we'll talk maybe a little about this later, but I thought it was important to bring this up as the other anniversary that everybody wants to talk about is the hundredth day of the Trump administration coming here. We are 100 days into the Trump administration Now. Matt, you have a piece at the Free Press this morning in a larger.
- [02:10]
John Podhoretz
Symposium on Trump's the largest symposium ever. I described it as the cannonball run of symposiums. There's like 30 people in it.
- [02:20]
Abe Greenwald
Commentary used to routinely have symposium with more, more people than that, but that's okay. Well, anyway, but you.
- [02:28]
John Podhoretz
The wrong expectations.
- [02:29]
Abe Greenwald
Okay. So I want to, I want to just say that you make a very important point that I think is very important to focus on, which is you're like, you know what? The hundredth day doesn't matter. The 658th day matters. That will be the day of the 2026 midterm election. And I think what's important is a lot of people who are defending Trump in this symposium, in other places are complaining that people who are critical, like me or something are not giving him time. We're not giving him. Give him time. Give him time for his policies to work. Give him time.
- [03:03]
John Podhoretz
Let him cook.
- [03:05]
Abe Greenwald
It's not for. He has the time. I don't have to give him the time. The Constitution gives him the Time he will be president. You know, barring a horrible event or his impeachment and rule, he will be president for, for almost four years.
- [03:23]
John Podhoretz
Left, right.
- [03:24]
Abe Greenwald
Got all the time in the world. Nothing.
- [03:26]
Seth Mandel
I likely will be president for all the time left because he's been impeached a couple times already and he's still there. He's dodged bullets like the Matrix. Yeah, you know, I think, I think everybody's pretty settled in with the set, the amount of time he's got.
- [03:40]
Abe Greenwald
So I'm very happy that, that my old friend Victor Davis Hansen wants, wants him to be given time. The world is giving him time. So congratulations on all the time in the world that you may have. Although according to Matt, of course, he really only has another 558 days to cook because unless the results are better, the effectiveness of his presidency is in some fashion or other, may, may find itself coming to an end in November 2026.
- [04:17]
John Podhoretz
Well, certainly would take a different direction. And we have already heard that the Democrats are planning to impeach him if they gain control of the House of Representatives. The first articles of impeachment have already been introduced by a Michigan congressman who was mentioned during Trump's hundred day rally in Michigan last night. So a couple things about the hundred days. It's a completely arbitrary number. The historical roots of this benchmark are back in the FDR presidency and the New Deal and kind of the extraordinary actions FDR and the Democratic super majorities in Congress took in 1933 to address the, the Great Depression. In some ways, it's a good analogy because Trump has been extraordinarily active. He has had more than 200 executive orders since coming to office. He's on pace, according to Neil Ferguson, to possibly outmatch FDR's executive orders from 1933 by the end of this year. And so it's fair to say that Trump's impact on the United States of America and the world is going to be as significant as Franklin Delano Rose. I think that's a fair statement to make. So the question is, well, how's he doing? And that's always the question in Washington. How is the President doing? What I point out in the Free Press symposium, Just go to the bottom. Any, any listener, any listener who goes, wants to read me, you can read Bill Maher too. He's a man of significance. But just go scroll, keep scrolling, don't get tired of scrolling. And you'll see me there at the bottom of the symposium. But I make the point that if you just look at why Trump was elected, Two personal attributes, two policies. He's actually making some strong progress. He was elected on personal attributes of strong leadership and the desire for major change in Washington. I think he's demonstrated both of those things in the past hundred days. And on policy, the two major issues were inflation and immigration. Now, immigration. It's incredible. Trump has closed the border. He's the only president in the 21st century to do this. Other presidents have worried about the border or try to tackle illegal immigration. Trump's done it. And I think that can't be reduced in significance. Then there's inflation. And here the data we have since he's become president actually shows that the rate of inflation is declining. But there's a big asterisk, and that's the asterisk that really hangs over these hundred days. And the asterisk is what will be the ultimate consequence of Liberation Day and the trade war. And this is why, in my view, Trump's approval ratings have declined. Now, we talked about this on Monday. I don't think they've declined as significantly as we've seen in the rash of public polling that came out last weekend. But they're down. They're down to about 45% in the real clear politics average. And if the trade war does result in a recession, a global downturn, even a financial crisis, then the numbers are. Would go down further, and that would make day 652, election day 2026, go very badly for Republicans. We're not there yet, but I do think this should be the major priority of the White House averting that outcome.
- [07:53]
Abe Greenwald
So we've effectively sided with Putin in the war in Ukraine, and we are negotiating a second JCPOA with Iran. The weird energy that Trump showed at the very beginning of the administration on the matter of Israel and Gaza, which included his plan to depopulate Gaza, to scatter the Gazans essentially as refugees around the Middle east, and to rebuild Gaza as a resort community, seems to have fled his mind as quickly as it entered it. And so we have NATO, we have our alliances tested. We have the fact that his personal intercession in some fashion in the Canadian election has resulted in the Liberals maintaining power. And so the presidency, the most important task of the presidency could argue the border is a foreign policy issue. So I will. I will see that as a major thing. But the president's most important role is his commander in chief and is there to preserve, protect and defend not only the Constitution of the United States, but our. But. But to. But to protect us against enemies both foreign and domestic. And there I do not think the record is good. I don't think anybody outside of his most slavish followers can look at what has happened in this flurry of activity, all of which is self generated. Did not have to involve himself in the in the Russia Ukraine peace initiative. That's his initiative. Neither side is particularly interested in p He has placed this no one was calling for a new Iran deal. No one was really calling for him to assert a day after plan for Gaza that was as radical as the one that he proposed and that he clearly is not serious about. If he had been serious about it, we might be having very interesting and innovative conversations about what to do about Gaza that would not have settled back. For those of us who are paying granular attention to this, to this kind of waiting for Godot stasis in which Israel is pounding Hamas. Hamas is not giving up the hostages. Israel is impounding Hamas enough because it still wants to get the hostages out. So the war is kind of ongoing without any scene of resolution and Israel is beginning to fray and crack emotionally because it is in this incredibly long what is now I legitimately for particularly for a small country, an incredibly long and costly war. You know, 18, 18 months now. So I think on the on the foreign policy front with our allies and elsewhere, his presidency is a catastrophe and we haven't even talked about the tariffs. So your points may be good that he's got his moments and he's, you know, he's shown the American people a lot of and we could haven't talked about the really good stuff that I think we all agree on, which is the anti Semitism initiatives, the enforcement of Title 6 on college campuses and elsewhere, and the absolute war on DEI and the insistence on treating races and genders unequally, for which he and the entire administration deserve an enormous amount of credit.
- [11:27]
John Podhoretz
Can I just say a comment on foreign policy. This is one of his weakest issues. The when you look at his approval ratings again and you go into the cross tabs that he's had real problems with the economy and with foreign policy. Those were two areas where he was very strong during his first administration. And in a separate piece for the Free Press that came out yesterday, I kind of drew contrasts between his first and second administration. And foreign policy in particular, I think is one where he has not followed the successful lessons of his first term. At the same time, this is one place where I think that the on Ukraine in particular, I know we have our differences here, but the public you know, the public opinion was not there for another weapons package to Ukraine. Something was going to have to give, with American intervention or assistance to the Ukrainians and their noble defense of their country against the Russian invasion. And so I think that ought to be segmented out from what's happening in the Middle East. One thing you didn't mention in the Middle east is there are continuous operations against the Houthis that he launched in March. The Houthis, An Iranian proxy. There are many pressures within the Trump coalition and in his administration not to undertake this intervention, but we have done it, and the Houthis have been damaged. There's no question about it. It's unclear how much, but I think. I think we can tell that they have been reduced and there should be additional efforts as well. The big mystery is the Iran, the Iran piece. And here it's kind of a crisscross of different currents within Trump. On the one hand, he's reinstated maximum pressure against the Iranians, so all the economic stuff has been reimposed, unlike with Joe Biden, who rolled it back. But on the other hand, he's engaged in this diplomatic initiative and these negotiations both sides seem to like, and that's a real threat. I mean, in addition to the economy, I would, I would say that big threat is winding up with an Iran deal that is as bad or potentially even worse as than the. The Obama deal that Trump called was the worst deal ever. So if he were to wind up in that place, I think it would divide the Republican coalition and it would make the world a much safer, less safer place.
- [14:05]
Abe Greenwald
I want to, I want to let Seth and Abe speak, but I do want to say that had Trump said he wanted a Ukrainian aid package, the Republican Party would have fallen completely in line. The fact that the voters seem to be divided on it and not divided, like, incredibly harshly either. You know, this was. This is a close to 50, 50 issue in this country and has been for, for years. So it's his choice to have decided that this is where he was going with it. He could have gotten it in five seconds. He has a Senate. He has literally certainly has more than. Would have more than 60 votes in the Senate for any aid package he would want. And would the, Would the House fall in line? Would all Democrats vote for the Ukrainian aid package with, like, seven or eight Republicans? Yes. So this was a deliberate, conscious choice. I wouldn't have expected him to make it. I also didn't expect him to decide that he was going to make peace and then get involved in peace and have his vice president abuse the leader of Ukraine sitting in the Oval Office for no sin or crime that the leader of Ukraine committed and dividing the NATO alliance there thereby. So I, I think that's a, you're, you're giving him too much credit for like, following public opinion on Ukraine, which is very easily led by whoever is going to lead it, because the public is a, not that invested in it. But to the extent that wasn't, it wasn't. Didn't turn on Biden for whatever Biden was doing, and Biden didn't do enough. And part of what we spent two years doing was saying that Biden wasn't doing enough. Now, maybe the fact that Biden didn't do enough made it impossible for Ukraine to prevail in the way that we would wish it to prevail, but nonetheless, there we are.
- [15:56]
Matthew Continetti
Abe, you can I add to that, actually, because I think what, what Trump did is not only just try to impose, I think, you know, pointlessly a piece peace plan on, on the war, but he launched a campaign against Zelensky and Biden sort of on behalf of Putin. And that is, was taking things in a direction that absolutely no one wanted, but some sort of, you know, MAGA core. And I think that that has real damaging, real world results beyond just not ending the war.
- [16:40]
Seth Mandel
I think it's been 100 days of being nice to people who say nice things to him and being mean to people who say mean things to him. Right. It's, it's like been a very, in some ways it's been a lot of chaos, but in some ways it's been easily predictable, which is like Zelensky made the mistake of seeming to criticize the administration in front of him, and that was enough for Trump. And Putin is smart enough to say, you know, Trump, he seems like a good guy, blah, blah, blah, whatever, or just keep his mouth shut. And there's like a straight, there's a strategy emerging in the world in which, you know, I think Trump has mistaken people's reticence to criticize him for fear of American power, that he's made America great again, that he's made America strong again, that he's made America feared again. But in reality, it's the deal. It's everybody walking on eggshells because he's so personally sensitive. And I think he's confusing that for this idea that America is strong again and people are afraid of us, when in reality, he's often being manipulated in those very situations where he thinks America has become strong. Again, so that to me has been the hallmark on foreign policy of the hundred days, which is, I think that he has a skewed understanding of what it means to be a fearsome power.
- [18:07]
Abe Greenwald
Can I you bring something up that is very important about the transactional nature of the presidency and the quid pro quo nature of the presidency where he wants to get things personally. Some of it's money or, you know, the obeisance is shown in terms of money getting settlements from, you know, Paramount or CBS or you know, whoever on various things. Money that is, you know, in libel, ABC ridiculous libel suits that they settle in order to sort of clear the decks and make sure that they don't have regulatory problems with him, which is, by the way, an emolument and impeachable and removable under ordinary circumstances. And that's why we shouldn't, by the way, be so quick to assume that the impeachments that will follow if, if Democrats take the house in 2026 are going to be as, as, as, as foolish or immediately dead on arrival as the perfect phone call impeachment in 2018, 2019. There is bad stuff going on here in terms of the administration levering power that for money and things that are going directly not only into his pocket, potentially into the pockets of people in his family. That is blatantly the Constitution was written particularly to prevent stuff like this. And that could be harder to argue against than some of this other stuff. But what brought this to mind is the war on the law firms. So the war on the law firms is Trump is saying we're going to die. You access, government's not going to hire you, you're not going to have security clear because you were mean to me. You hired this. You, you know, you, you did this, you did that, you did the other thing. Okay, the war on the law firms. There's another way of looking at the war on the law firms. Blatantly unconstitutional, I'm told, though I don't see exactly why it's blatantly the Constitution quite factors in here. But what he is getting the law firms to agree to is to participate in pro bono efforts contrary to what, you know, toward in aid or in pursuit of conservative causes. Now why do now if he played this differently, if it weren't just I'm sticking it to these guys because they were mean to me in my impeachment. But he said the entire world of big law has been serving as an unpaid contribution to leftism in the United States that these guys, they get out of Law school. They go into these firms, they do all. They do all this pro bono work while they're making millions and billions of dollars in mergers and acquisition. Whatever it is that they do that makes them all this money and 95% of the work that they do that is supposed to be helpful to the Nat, to, you know, to the good working order of our courts, and that people get the kind of defense they is all like everything else academically related is all in. In one direction. And some people who worked at these firms in major positions had to quit the firms because they had done things that the firms didn't like. Like the single greatest appellate lawyer in the United States, Paul Clement, had to resign from his law firm in order to pursue both abortion cases and gun cases because apparently this was not acceptable to the senior partners at his be akin to sort of like firing Clarence Darrow because he took on a case that you didn't like. I mean, that is how revered Paul Clement is as a lawyer practicing at the Supreme Court bar. And so this could have been cast in a different way as these liberal institutions have been putting their fingers on the scale of liberal causes forever. And I'm going to do what I can to end that. They can offer pro bono services to the Beckett Fund or other places they're not doing. So let them do so. See what. Let's go into a. Let's, let's have an agreement about this for the good and benefit of everybody having a fair shake in the appellate courts and before the Supreme Court. But he wanted it scored as they're kowtowing to him. So whatever positive benefit that you could claim for conservatism or conservative causes or Republican ideas or whatever Trump has made impossible. So I can't. It's very hard to defend these deals with the law firms because Trump wants us to say, see, I gotcha now. In fact, what he got was something that I think is actually, on balance, a good thing for the country. But I don't think it's a good thing for the country for him to be like, gangstering it against Perkins Coy or whatever.
- [23:29]
John Podhoretz
My general take on the 100 days. I keep thinking about the celebration of Joe Biden's hundred days in 2021 and all of the media hosannas that were sung to Joe Biden about how he was a transformative president, that he was the next fdr, that he. Everything that he was doing on climate, on the economy, on equity and DEI were so important on the pandemic, were so important, so real and I look at Joe Biden's presidency as one of the worst in my lifetime, the worst in my lifetime, and one of the worst in the past 100 years. So all this is to say that's not been the media reaction to Trump's hundred days. The media reaction to Trump's hundred days is a little bit of what we've been hearing here this morning, which is that it's not good, it's really bad. There's no way to defend any of it. And you know, okay, we'll see. We'll see what happens next November, and we'll see what the state of the country is at the end of Trump's term in 2028. Because I remember Trump's first term when there was a lot of similar talk about how terrible he was and how crazy he made Washington. But, you know, before the pandemic, if you were just to look at the objective factors determining the well being of America and its citizenry, he was doing pretty well. And what struck me, actually surprised me in some ways as I was writing this contribution to the Free Press symposium was as of last month. So we don't have the April data. Right. We'll get that in the next couple of weeks. But as of March, those first two months, on the actual metrics, whether it's the inflation rate, whether it's the job numbers, whether it's the price of gasoline or eggs, we're all headed in the right direction. The one thing that wasn't headed in the right direction was the stock market. But even though I believe that the health of the stock market is intimately tied to the health of Main street, that's not how the voters see it. And the voters, I think, care much more about jobs and job creation than they do where the market is. But again, we are going to have to see the numbers in the next month, the April numbers and May numbers and June numbers for the impact of Liberation Day. And my worry is that that impact will be quite negative.
- [26:16]
Abe Greenwald
So to talk a little bit about the good that has been done, let's talk a little about the stories that have come up in the last 24 hours about Harvard's release of these joint reports. Because, of course, there had to be a joint report, had to be two different reports just to be fair.
- [26:40]
Seth Mandel
We're tackling an important problem known as anti Semitism and Islamophobia.
- [26:44]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly.
- [26:44]
Seth Mandel
So there's a report in Mary Poppins.
- [26:49]
Abe Greenwald
Yes. Supercalifragilistic Islamophobia. Osis. Okay, so Harvard had to report on anti Semitism because there was a huge outbreak of anti Semitism after October 2023. So, of course, it then also did a report on Islamophobia because it is a vile, hypocritical, loathsome institution that seeks to create moral equivalences where moral equivalences do not exist. And anybody who sends their kids to Harvard should immediately remove them and send them somewhere else. But the report on anti Semitism has finally been released after, you know. You know, I mean, I took 18 months. So it's very detailed, and it's pretty shocking. And what's shocking about it is an admission about the pedagogy at Harvard, not about the atmosphere for Jews. I mean, there's bad data in there about the atmosphere for Jews fearing, expressing themselves, Jews feeling unsafe on campus. Physically unsafe, not, you know, unsafe in terms of what they can say and stuff like that. So apparently, systematically, in department after department, junior faculty not yet tenured have been creating programs unsupported by what seems to be called the ladder system, which I had not known was a term of art. Maybe it's a term of art at Harvard or in the Ivies in general, but in other words, meaning if you're going to do a program and you're an assistant professor of how I hate Jews ism in the department of Qatar at. At. At Harvard, theoretically, there should be a tenured professor that is overseeing this project who is somebody. The administrative that the Harvard administration and its whole system has invested with lifetime employment on the grounds that he is a reputable scholar who can provide students and the world with proper research and understanding of what it means to do academic scholarship. And this apparently has not been happening all over. All over the administration. You create some job, you put somebody in it, and he says, I'm going to do something about colonial Jewish, colonial evil. And it's like, sure, go ahead. Go ahead. Go right ahead. I'm gonna go. You know, I'm gonna go to the faculty club and get drunk.
- [29:40]
John Podhoretz
Go to a Kamala rally. Go to the Kamala rally. You, my radical grad student, you work on your Blame Israel report.
- [29:50]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, I mean, and apparently, like, we're talking about dozens of such. I don't. Interdisciplinary concentrations, whatever you might call them, that are utterly unsupervised. And Alan Garber, the interim president of Harvard, who signed this report, and everybody said, we've done badly here. This is not right. We're not doing what we're supposed to be doing.
- [30:21]
Seth Mandel
The report should be called Mistakes Were Made.
- [30:25]
Abe Greenwald
So basically, stop sending your kids to Harvard. Because the people who make Harvard, Harvard are not actually teaching your kids. Your kids are being taught by 28 year old Iranian national. This is Yale. I'm sorry, but you know, like a 28 year old Iranian national who has created an anti colonialist program and you know, and abuses Jewish kids who come into the, come into her classroom. That's again Yale, not Harvard. So that's not fair. That's just the one.
- [30:52]
John Podhoretz
Well, I mean, or it's Colombia and what's happening there. Or it's everything we are hearing about Princeton and DEI and this Chris Rufo piece at City Journal where he interviews an anonymous professor about how just bad the DEI mentality has affected.
- [31:09]
Abe Greenwald
We can't hire a white guy.
- [31:10]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. So Ivies, I mean the Ivies are emblematic of the shifts in higher education.
- [31:17]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [31:18]
John Podhoretz
And they're particularly bad, I think because of their status. They have attracted the worst actors in the world in order to influence them and shape them. And that's what's happened here. And it's made these campuses hostile environments for not just Jewish students, but plenty of other students as well. So I think this is one place, by the way, where the Trump administration has done good.
- [31:42]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly. That's why I wanted to bring this up because this report would have been buried, we would never have seen it had Kamala Harris become president of the United States with second gentleman Doug Emhoff having an matzo ball role on the, you know, on the, on the, on the lawn, Kamala's brisket. And Kamala, we just had Pesach.
- [32:04]
John Podhoretz
She would be cooking up a big bowl of her brisket.
- [32:08]
Abe Greenwald
Yes. For Passover, delicious brisket.
- [32:10]
John Podhoretz
And meanwhile Jews would be hiding on college campuses.
- [32:14]
Abe Greenwald
Right. But I think, you know, the thing that struck me about this and why I, why after all of this time talking about anti Semitism on campus, which is nothing, is not a new subject for us here. It didn't start on October 7th. And all this is this what's missing from the report is the understanding that create, having these assistant professors creating these programs and all that is the point. It's not, oh, we weren't looking and this just happened and now we're looking. So it's not going to happen anymore. They were like, you know, they were like sneaking off into the hallway and, you know, putting shaving cream and then like, you know, and then having, and having, you know, making ski slopes in, you know, in the dorms while we weren't looking. Now we're really going to look at it. The whole point of hiring people like this was for them to do things like this, because everybody at the Admit, everybody in, at Harvard, with the exception of 12 people, thinks this is what should be done. They are not. They are not opposed to it, except logistically. It's like how you caught us. No one's supervising them. That's bad. Okay, we know that's bad. You shouldn't be driving a car without a light, you know, without a. Without an assigned, you know, driver's ed instructor in the car. But it's okay. We let you have the cyber truck and you can drive it all over the Harvard yard. Gee, we really blew it. You know, it is a pretty staggering admission of what life is like in these places as they've been taken over over the last generation, generation and a half by this unholy amalgam of administrators, ideological enforcers, and increasingly lazy, shiftless and contemptible lions of academe who are watching their departments being eaten alive by this nonsense and are doing nothing because.
- [34:32]
Matthew Continetti
Well, because it's easier to let. To sort of let some new professor launch this, you know, anti Semitic, anti colonialism course and just. And just, you know, stay away from. Just let it happen without. Without having to get involved. That's how you. That's how you make it happen.
- [34:55]
Seth Mandel
You know, they did that with discipline, too, right? Like one of Trump's. It was. One of Trump's demands of Harvard was to centralize discipline in the office of the president so that someone could be held accountable. But Harvard is structured very purposefully so that nothing is ever any one person's fault. And, and it can't be laid at the feet of the president who is like, you know, some figurehead or something like that. I'm also struck in the report by the way the, the. The school seems to be realizing, or the authors of the report and those who signed it seem to be realizing that they have a lot of terrible people on campus. And this, this to me was like the real admission because, you know, it. The first section, so it's a long report. It has this section on recommendations, but the first section of Recommend, you know, split into topics. The first topic in the recommendations is admissions, right? So obviously they understand that they're letting people into the school who are lunatics and they're trying to figure out how to screen for lunatics, meaning struggling.
- [36:09]
Abe Greenwald
But what you mean is they want lunatics. That school does. The school, the admissions office, what we call lunatics, they call passionate activists who are leaders who are going to help guide the United states through the 21st century.
- [36:33]
Seth Mandel
That's exactly right.
- [36:34]
Abe Greenwald
Here.
- [36:34]
Seth Mandel
Here's their description of it. Events of the past two years have caused us to worry that Harvard tends to admit some individuals who already see themselves as leaders with a mandate to act rather than as learners who are curious, open to others and aware that they need further education. So, yeah, I mean, they're, they're, they're hiring for, they're admitting for leaders. And they thought, they've always thought it was a good thing that, you know, they have these people who are. Already have a sense of entitlement to power that they've, that they've brought on, but they don't know what to do about it. Because how do you write? So how do you. How do you admit fewer psychopaths? So, you know, the first bullet point is articulate.
- [37:17]
Abe Greenwald
I don't know, you know, somebody in high school at Boston Latin. This is, this is a story about Columbia, not about Harlem. Somebody in Boston Latin gets up and says, you know, I would like all white people to die. You know what you do, don't admit them to your university. Don't let them in. Like, instead of going, well, you know, I mean, he may be a little misguided on the violence front, but, I mean, look at that passion. And he's standing up and speaking at community board meetings.
- [37:48]
John Podhoretz
Or he has a diverse. He comes from a diverse background, right, which we cherish here at our institution. So that he's going to get to the top of the front of the line.
- [37:56]
Abe Greenwald
You know, you. It strikes me that this is this weird kind of reverse social Darwinism. So we spent 100 years. Social Darwinism was a political philosophy emerging after, you know, Darwin's origin. The species created the idea of, you know, not create the idea of evolution, but, you know, sort of brought this in. And Spencer, Herbert Spencer, the sort of founder of the ideology of social Darwinism, said because of what Darwin teaches us, what we know is that there is a kind of natural hierarchy in the world, and there are leaders and there are less. And the Ivies in the late 19th century started creating institutions precisely on these grounds, which was our purpose is to train the future leaders of the. We're going to. Naturally, we're going to surface the natural leaders of the country and then train them. But we can figure out from their backgrounds, from their. This, from the size of their heads. If you measure them with a tape measure, you'll be able to know who's a leader and who's not a leader. And a lot of the institutions that people make fun of at, on Ivy campuses, you know, the secret societies at Yale or the eating clubs at Princeton or whatever are manifestations of Social Darwinism. The idea being, what we need to do is everybody, all these leaders need to get together, know each other when they're 18, 19, 20 years old, because they're going to be the phalanx that runs the world for the next 75 years. And they should all know each other and be intimate with each other because they'll be able to work better for the national interests and all that. And as the 20th century progressed and the monstrousness of Social Darwinism, which of course led inevitably to eugenics and various other ideas, became manifestly clear to people, a lot of these institutions had to strip themselves of this ideology because it's so hidebound. It's this idea of a natural aristocracy which then dovetails very easily with the idea of an actual aristocracy, very anti American. And they were stripped. And now what we have here is social Darwinism in reverse, which is to say what we want are. We're going to surface leaders in high school. And you know who those are? They're climate change activists, they're George Floyd activists. They're somebody who writes Black Lives Matter a hundred times. Or what is it you need, a 600 word essay, Black Lives Matter 200 times. So you get to your 600 words and that kid gets admitted to all five, five or six Ivy League institutions with that as his personal essay statement. They're trying to surface leaders, but the leaders they're trying to surface are people who hate this country, who want to impose rigorous radical orthodoxies on it. And this is the job of these admissions officers. And then they are they. Then the faculty and these schools are presented with these classes of kids, since they don't participate in this except at the graduate level. Right. You only. Professors only admit kids at the graduate level because they pick who is in their graduate programs and then they have to live with them for four years. And if something happens and some new sanity overtakes Alan Garber and people like that, who says, you know, we need. What we need to do is use test scores and use grades and I don't care what their extracurriculars are, you know why? Because what I want to know is, is someone a student or not? Are they learners or not? I don't care whether they're, you know, volunteering to, you know, canvas for Greenpeace. That's not what matters on my college campus.
- [41:52]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, I mean, but the reform is to do that. That's what's crazy. This, this report signed by Alan Garber says in evaluating candidates, this is for admissions, prioritize demonstrated qualities such as bridge building, particularly through participation in organizations and activities that promote dialogue across difference. I mean, it's like that's how we got here and that's that your road ahead is, is literally the path to where you had to sign a 300 page report on rampant antisemitism and an educational crisis at Harvard.
- [42:30]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, I mean, I have to say the problem is so much bigger than anti Semitism. Right. So let's say, you know, in an imaginary scenario, Harvard agrees to every Trump administration demand regarding anti Semitism. They're still not going to be picking kids based on objective data ten years from now.
- [42:58]
Abe Greenwald
Right. Well, they don't want to. Right. That's what we learned from the Students for Fair Admissions suit is that they, they bury everything in this gobbledygook about what qualities. Look, we, we're trying to build a class, you know, the class of 2020. And we're trying to build a class. And you know, there are people who are, will. We think will fit Harvard and people who we think will not fit Harvard. Well, it turned out that for 20 years, what they thought was Asian kids shouldn't be here because you know what, they work too hard and they're not too, they're not busy like trying to destroy capitalism in the name of Greta Thunberg. And that's what we like. That's, that's, that, that's the kind of people we like. We don't like somebody who bows his head down and goes and does his work and sits in the library. Right.
- [43:51]
John Podhoretz
The think of how crazy that Asian Americans are following the earlier path to college admissions, which is academic achievement. You know, and the new path is political activism and conforming to this woke ideology. And so they don't fit. Right. And how you, how you shift the universities back to the earlier path to admission on academic achievement is the big question of our time. And Trump is using the federal government to kind of bash, bash the heads of these universities. But there are other methods as well. And you know, it's also set in the context of a lot of people not looking to go to college or looking to Southern colleges, state schools, places where this progressive ideology has not embedded itself.
- [44:52]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, there are plenty of state schools where the progressive ideology has embedded itself. Right. The University of Michigan is a school where the progressive ideology embedded itself. You're right, Southern schools, all of that. But I think what's important here and why we're talking about Harvard only because it issued this report, and I don't want to focus on Harvard like, everything is about Harvard, and it's ridiculous. We're talking about a governing ideology.
- [45:15]
Seth Mandel
Harvard is the Donald J. Trump of universities.
- [45:18]
Abe Greenwald
Fair enough. We're talking about a governing ideology of the American liberal left elite that Trump, that the Trump administration, for all of the hundred days of chaos that we have seen, has decided it is taking on as an enemy. And it is for that reason that I can't, despite all of the negative talk here, you know, I can't say, don't think that. That this is a very exciting prospect. I do think it's got to be done well and carefully. For example, the great counterattack on Trump on the part of people who are worried about the universities and the unfairness of him is they've gone at medical, biomedical research and scientific research. That is the glory of the American academic system, and they're cut wholesale. And everyone is terrified in these schools because all this money has been frozen and no one knows what's going to happen. There's a diabetes study, longitudinal diabetes. Say it's been going on for 30 years. It suddenly has no money. And that's terrible, and we need to do this, that or the other thing. Now, Doge and RFK Jr are the world's worst spokesman for whatever it is that they're trying to do. But there is a different issue that could be raised here. That is why it would be better if they were better at this, because this stuff could destroy this effort, which is. You're right. Biomedical research is really important. Why are you taking 80% in overhead from your federal grants? I mean, someone I know told me this weekend that his university takes 80% in overhead for biomedical research grants. 80% goes to overhead. You understand that if I ran Commentary and 80%, which is a nonprofit institution, 80% of Commentary's budget were spent on overhead, I would lose my tax exemption and I would likely end up in jail for embezzlement. I can't spend 80% of the money that we raise on overhead. That money has to be spent producing this podcast, the magazine, the website do. It has to be shown that the donors who are giving me this money are getting commentary, not I'm flying my wife with me to a conference somewhere or other. Harvard, Yale. These places are taking an astonishing amount of public dollars for administrative overhead on the biomedical research that is so important. Imagine that the Trump administration focused on that. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
- [48:23]
Seth Mandel
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Abe Greenwald
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Seth Mandel
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Abe Greenwald
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Seth Mandel
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- [48:41]
John Podhoretz
Today, scientific research is very important. I agree with that. But you know, where were these researchers when Jews were being harassed? Where were these researchers when the administrations of these universities dismissed academic achievement in order to embrace dei? Which by the way, doesn't help science. The fact that they were pretty silent, you know, throughout this process, I think should be taken into consideration when these grants are being suspended because it's, it's, you know, there are sins of commission and there are also sins of omission. Since we're in the conclave now, I can make that a distinction. And I just, you know, I still think I'd like this research to continue.
- [49:34]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [49:34]
John Podhoretz
And this is, unfortunately, this is one of the main pressure points the administration has to force changes. But you know, would have been, would have been nice if they had been proactive in stopping the corruption of the university at an earlier point.
- [49:50]
Seth Mandel
And also it's, it's, Trump is also showing what they need to do on campus in a certain way. Right. Because what, what solves these problems is discipline. I'm not saying send them to salt mines. I'm saying don't allow kids on campus to do terrible things. Don't allow your administrators and professors to do terrible things. Right. But especially the students. And it's like this report is filled with, you must impart on each student the importance of cross cultural dialogue and pluralism. It's like, no, you don't have to, you're not their life coach. You don't have to tell them that. You have to educate them and you have a set of rules and if they start going around breaking the rules, punish them for breaking the rules. You are an institution that sets up the system of incentives. You are in control of that. So don't incentivize the behavior that you're seeing. Punishment, bad behavior, you know, and that's.
- [50:52]
Abe Greenwald
Sort of the, and they do bottom.
- [50:53]
Seth Mandel
Line thing with Trump is that like, Trump is like, you know, he has this sort of like, you know, unfrozen caveman way of, he's like, Harvard is bad. I'm going to punish them for being bad. And you know, as heavy handed as it is, the, the point at the, at the center of it is like, Harvard should learn also that punish, Punishing bad behavior is kind of what you do. And there's all this dancing around. Like, what if we explained to them that it would be really nice if they followed the rules?
- [51:24]
Abe Greenwald
Oh, come on.
- [51:25]
Seth Mandel
Those are not rules. Those are suggestions.
- [51:27]
Abe Greenwald
Right. But they punish plenty of bad behavior. Right. That. That's what we know. Right. Step out of line on talking about affirmative action or gun control or something like that, and somebody says, you're making me feel unsafe in a classroom. And you're hauled before a star chamber.
- [51:41]
John Podhoretz
Get accused of sexual assault and have no due process rights to respond.
- [51:46]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly.
- [51:46]
John Podhoretz
And you're getting disciplined.
- [51:47]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly. I mean, that's a real. That, that's like something where.
- [51:50]
John Podhoretz
And who did that? The Obama administration was responsible for that. Exercising its leverage over these universities and the universities, because they're in ideological alignment with the progress.
- [52:00]
Abe Greenwald
We're happy for.
- [52:00]
John Podhoretz
We're happy to do it.
- [52:01]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [52:02]
John Podhoretz
Now all of a sudden, Trump is saying, hey, by the way, maybe you should conform to the Civil Rights act of 1964 and your admissions and title. Is it 6 or 7?
- [52:12]
Abe Greenwald
6.
- [52:12]
John Podhoretz
Title 6. And not allow this discrimination against. And harassment against Jewish students. And they're, you know, pulling their hair out and running around and. And saying that, oh, my God. Oh, my God, Our. The whole system is going to collapse.
- [52:27]
Abe Greenwald
Just like Hitler. Yes, Everything.
- [52:30]
Seth Mandel
Remember when Hitler. Remember when Hitler said, be nicer to the Jews or I'll pull your federal funding? It's just like that.
- [52:38]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. Yeah. That's my favorite thing now is the. Don't believe it. Don't believe that Trump is a friend to Jews because he has turned.
- [52:48]
John Podhoretz
Oh, my God.
- [52:49]
Abe Greenwald
Turned the administration's policies in the most important way toward ending the vile conduct toward Jews. And we're supposed to look at him and say, he's not a friend to Jews. You know, screw all of you who say that. And by the way, really, screw you.
- [53:06]
John Podhoretz
You're in a great mood today, John.
- [53:08]
Abe Greenwald
Screw you, this administration, if it is nothing else is friendly to Jews. So piss off.
- [53:15]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah. And by the way, what the anti Semites say is, look at Trump paying back the Jews who support him, who put him in power.
- [53:25]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, I know. Well, yeah, if only. Anyway, I should point out before we leave there, since Matt said we need to, the proof of the pudding will be as the data come out. Data has come out while we're talking.
- [53:38]
John Podhoretz
Yes.
- [53:39]
Abe Greenwald
Which is that the economy has contracted 0.3% by 0.3% for the first quarter. Right. Now, remember, you cannot blame first quarter numbers on a presidency that has Just begun. Generally speaking, you would say if someone comes and it's 100 days, that, that the overhang of the previous administration would be playing a role here. The problem here is that it could be that all of this economic activity that has ended up turning the economy southward really is because of the emergency created by Liberation Day and could in fact be laid entirely.
- [54:17]
John Podhoretz
You know, your favorite economic journalist, John Carney Breitbart, actually predicted this GDP read that we have this morning. Because the way in which GDP is calculated, imports are a bad thing. They actually bring down your gross domestic product number. And in anticipation of the Trump terrorists and of Liberation Day, what seems to have happened is a lot of businesses actually stocked up on imports, especially from China, and that helped drive down the overall GDP number. And so again, this is Trump's doing in a way. Right, but it, but it is not necessarily.
- [54:57]
Abe Greenwald
Well, we have other. There are other weird numbers here. Like, and this maybe revisited consumer. Consumer spending crashed. So consumer spending was 4% rose by 4% in, in the last quarter of 2024, up by 1.8% in 1Q24.
- [55:16]
John Podhoretz
That's the danger sign because that is engine going. Is the American consumer.
- [55:21]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. And the American consumer is worried and isn't buying cars and isn't buying. And isn't, you know, is, is, is, is, is freezing in place because of the economic uncertainty. Right. Okay. So I think that's important. Matt, you have a recommendation?
- [55:37]
John Podhoretz
I do. Thank you, John. I have a recommendation today. Just an offhand line in a book I read during my recent trip to Chicago, Saul Bellows to Jerusalem back, reminded me that I'd never really read any Isaac Basheva Singer. And so I picked up recently Isaac Basheva Singer's Collected Stories. This is the classic edition. It's a thick paperback. I've read the first three stories in the collection Gimple, the Fool, the Gentleman from Krakow, and a story called Joy. And I have to say each one of them moved me in a way that it's. I find very rare in my experience for writing to move me. Obviously, I read a lot and I'm often, you know, enjoy. It's a pleasurable experience for me or I learn things or I am impressed by writer style. But I've just been overwhelmed by some of these stories. The story Joy, which I read last night in particular. And so I want to recommend Isaac Basheva Singer's Stories, His Collected Stories. It's a paperback. You get it. Read one a night. I. I don't think you'll regret it at all.
- [56:48]
Abe Greenwald
Many of his greatest stories appeared in commentary in the 1950s and 1960s, including the gentleman from Krakow, which is a pretty remarkable story. Yentil Yeshiva Boy, which is the source.
- [57:02]
John Podhoretz
Also in this book. I haven't read it yet. Yeah.
- [57:04]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. Which is the source of.
- [57:06]
John Podhoretz
I believe I'm pretty. I could be getting this wrong, but I'm pretty sure that our. Our friend and Commentary contributor Joseph Epstein, when asked which 20th century writer will be remembered 100 years from now, has said Singer. He could also have said Shalom Aleichem. But. But yeah, you know what if he said Singer, and maybe I'm just making this up. He's absolutely right, because there's something about these stories I've been just like, amazed by.
- [57:34]
Seth Mandel
And if he didn't say Singer. He should have.
- [57:36]
Abe Greenwald
He should.
- [57:36]
John Podhoretz
Exactly. That's what I mean. Yeah. The. The language is so simple. Right. And this is in translation.
- [57:42]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. Pure.
- [57:43]
Matthew Continetti
Pure storytelling.
- [57:44]
John Podhoretz
It's just. And yeah, it's just simple an image. And it's not. And yet, after all three, I just put them down like, and just kind of left and to say, wow.
- [57:55]
Matthew Continetti
So it's incredible.
- [57:56]
John Podhoretz
I'm looking forward to the rest of the volume over the next few weeks.
- [57:59]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, it is extraordinary. Anyway, he was extraordinary. And just to. Just to amuse people. My office looks out onto the apartment building that Singer lived in for most of his life in New York. In New York City. So I can look straight ahead and see that. Which is also, by the way, the same apartment building in only murders in the building. As a result, there are constantly tourists standing.
- [58:30]
John Podhoretz
And other Yiddishists wrote. Lived in that building. Right.
- [58:33]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. Because there's a poet. There's a. Yeah, he. Well, there was a. There's a cafeteria across the street.
- [58:38]
John Podhoretz
Okay.
- [58:39]
Abe Greenwald
That no longer exists. That was Singer's haunt. And all the Yiddish writers used to.
- [58:46]
John Podhoretz
Gather be an only murder spin off.
- [58:48]
Abe Greenwald
Yes.
- [58:48]
John Podhoretz
One day.
- [58:49]
Abe Greenwald
Yes. Oh, yeah.
- [58:50]
John Podhoretz
And I know that Martin Short would love to portray these. One of these Yiddish writers.
- [58:56]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [58:56]
Matthew Continetti
Well, I should mention again, because that. That coffee shop comes up and I. I recommended once on the podcast a. An old PBS documentary on singing.
- [59:10]
Abe Greenwald
Right. Yeah.
- [59:10]
Matthew Continetti
From the 70s.
- [59:12]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [59:12]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah. And you could find it on YouTube. And it's incredible. It's. It's just great. It's just. So you just sort of watch him go throughout his life and. And recount his childhood and his family and whatever else.
- [59:23]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [59:24]
Seth Mandel
I mean, one of the. Martin Short, one of the many voices in the Prince of Egypt. So he's. He's got some background for this. Although he played in Egypt.
- [59:31]
Abe Greenwald
That's true. Although. And also not. Not Jewish. But. But. But Looks Jewish. Looks Jewish, but isn't Jewish. Steve Martin. Not Jewish.
- [59:41]
John Podhoretz
I don't think Steve Martin I'm not going to cast Steve Martin in this particular Spit off.
- [59:45]
Seth Mandel
I don't think Martin was his was his Egyptian partner. They were the two. They played the two Advice, you know, Pharaoh's two advisors were Mark and here they are.
- [59:54]
Abe Greenwald
Here they are 30 years here they are 30 years later.
- [59:57]
John Podhoretz
Amazing.
- [59:58]
Abe Greenwald
Two Egyptians just on the road together in the Bel Nord. Okay. We'll be back tomorrow. For Matt, Abe and Seth, I'm John Porz. Keep the candle bur.