August 1 Mailbag!

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: August 1 Mailbag! Summary

Release Date: August 1, 2025

In this episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast, hosts John Podhoretz, Abe Greenwald, Matthew Continetti, and Christine Rosen engage with listener questions, delving into critical discussions surrounding U.S. foreign policy, just war theory, political narratives, and historical parallels to current international relations. Below is a comprehensive summary of the key topics, enriched with notable quotes and contributions from each host.

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1. U.S. Foreign Policy in Central and South America

Listener Input: John from Hollywood

John from Hollywood initiates the mailbag segment with an in-depth inquiry about the United States' involvement in Central and South America during the 1980s. He references historical events and literature, notably Stephen Kinzer's Massacre at El Mozote and Bitter Fruit, questioning the decline in American discourse about these regions since then.

John Podhoretz [10:38]: "The main issue in American foreign policy was our involvement in the civil war in El Salvador and what the Reagan administration was intending to do about the unquestionably communist regime that had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua."

Discussion Highlights:

• Abe Greenwald [15:07]: Emphasizes the complexity of historical narratives, pointing out the tendency of historians to retroactively align events with present-day understandings. He introduces the concept of "mission creep," highlighting how strategic interests and unintended consequences shaped U.S. interventions.

  "There's a tendency to neaten a narrative about some of the conflicts... considering both our best intentions and unintended consequences of our interventions."

• John Podhoretz [17:14]: Challenges Greenwald's perspective by defending the Reagan-era policies as reformist forces that promoted democratic elections in Central America, contrasting them with oppressive communist regimes like Cuba.

  "The Kirkpatrick was very important because she was writing about Argentina... the argument that authoritarian regimes can morph... proved to be correct."

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2. Defense of Israel and Just War Theory

Listener Input: Joe Carroll

Joe Carroll, a Roman Catholic and Zionist subscriber, presents a robust defense of Israel's military actions, invoking just war theory and historical comparisons to justify current policies.

Joe Carroll [20:52]: "Israel has taken special care to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza. Any allegation that Israel has done the opposite is blood libel."

Discussion Highlights:

• John Podhoretz [23:55]: Critiques Christine Rosen for equating Israel's actions with historical wartime atrocities like Dresden and Hiroshima, emphasizing the unique moral and strategic contexts.

  "If Israel were adopting the moral equivalent of firebombing towns... I would be forced to side with Israel's critics."

• Christine Rosen [41:54]: Supports Carroll's stance by underscoring the ethical imperatives of Israel's defense measures, contrasting them with indiscriminate wartime bombings.

  "Israel's war should not be counted among these events. Unjust war is always unjust war."

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3. Obama Administration and the Collusion Narrative

Listener Input: Steve Swan

Steve Swan challenges the podcast hosts on their interpretation of the Obama administration's stance during the Trump-Russia investigation, arguing that the administration knowingly perpetuated the collusion narrative despite lacking substantial evidence.

Steve Swan [26:09]: "The Obama administration knew this was incredible at the time of those reports... Comey was working hard to plant the narrative."

Discussion Highlights:

• Christine Rosen [27:01]: Expresses skepticism about the Democrats' understanding of Trump, suggesting that the narrative was an attempt to rationalize unforeseen political phenomena.

  "It was their effort to invent a story out of whole cloth. I sort of don't, but I don't know that that changes much because it wasn't a real story."

• John Podhoretz [31:37]: Draws parallels between the Russiagate investigation and the Bush administration's Plaingate scandal, highlighting perceived inefficiencies and political motivations behind such investigations.

  "We found out that the person who leaked the name was Richard Armitage... and it spiraled into a scandal that obsessed Washington for years over absolutely nothing."

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4. Historical Parallels: WWII Appeasement and Current Israeli Policies

Listener Input: Philip Stahl

Philip Stahl draws a contentious comparison between pre-WWII British and French governments' appeasement of Hitler and contemporary Western policies that he perceives as enabling terrorism and hindering Israel's security.

Philip Stahl [36:34]: "Their current attempt to enable terrorists and stop Israel from defending itself... should not surprise us."

Discussion Highlights:

• Abe Greenwald [38:26]: Rebuts Stahl's analogy, arguing that contemporary UK and French governments should be judged on current behaviors rather than historical actions. He criticizes modern policies as reflective of longstanding anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist sentiments within elite institutions.

  "France has been long gone on that score... leveraging modern institutions to propagate anti-Semitic statements."

• John Podhoretz [34:31]: Provides a historical defense of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement strategy, portraying it as an honorable effort to maintain peace until the true nature of Hitler's intentions became undeniable.

  "Chamberlain was acting in innocence... he did behave in a moral and noble fashion once it was inarguable what was in front of him."

• Christine Rosen [42:12]: Reinforces Podhoretz's perspective by contrasting past and present, emphasizing that current leaders have a better understanding of geopolitical threats and should be evaluated accordingly.

  "They know what they're facing and have every reason to understand what they're facing and what their actions mean."

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Conclusion

This episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast offers a deep dive into complex geopolitical issues, blending historical analysis with contemporary political discourse. The hosts engage thoughtfully with listener contributions, providing nuanced perspectives on U.S. foreign policy, ethical considerations in warfare, political narratives, and historical lessons applied to modern-day conflicts.

For those seeking a thorough examination of these topics from a Commentary Magazine standpoint, this mailbag episode serves as a valuable resource, encapsulating informed debate and editorial insight.

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Note: Advertisements, promotional segments, and non-content sections from the transcript have been intentionally excluded to maintain focus on the core discussions.

Transcript

[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

But one of the things that I.

[Abe Greenwald]

Know from a lot of people is that if your to do list is.

[John Podhoretz]

Growing and growing and growing and that.

[Abe Greenwald]

List starts to overrun your life, you need a tool that not only helps.

[John Podhoretz]

You out, but simplifies everything that can.

[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

Commentary.

[John Podhoretz]

Hope for the.

[Matthew Continetti]

Expect the wor Some preacher pain some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going Hope for the best expect the worst.

[John Podhoretz]

Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Friday, August 1, 2025. I am John Pot Horz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. I our roast, our 15th annual roast, is coming up on October 19th here in New York City. Go to commentary.org roast to find out more about this singular, delightful, unprecedented event. Though it has, as we, as I've said, 15 years of precedent, we are this year roasting the redoubtable Clifford Asness genius Quant financial advisor to kings and potentates and ordinary people all over the world. He's a very funny guy, and he will be very fun to make fun of at this singular event. Who's passed honorees? Roastees have included Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg and Joe. The late Joe Lieberman and Nathan Sharansky last year, and Barry Weiss the year before that, and Mayor Soloveijk and Dick Cheney. And both my parents, Norman Podhoritz and Midge Dector. And just a panoply of highly amusing people getting highly amusing tributes and teases. Commentary.org roast meet the commentary community, 500, 600 strong. Be among your friends and your ideological confreres. Bask in the reflected glow of me and my colleagues here today. Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

Hi, John.

And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, may I interrupt you because it's time for my public service announcement of the week. I don't think I've made it yet this week. And so, in addition to reminding everyone of the upcoming roast, which we're all excited to see you at, I do want to put in a word for The Commentary Magazine YouTube channel. You know, earlier this summer, I gave us the goal of reaching 20,000 subscribers by labor Day. I have to say, it may be the summer doldrums, but we need to pick up the pace. We're now at 18,300 subscribers to our YouTube channel, so that means we need 1700 subscribers basically within the next month. Remember, this is cost free. All you need to do is go to YouTube, find the commentary magazine podcast channel, and hit subscribe. That's all you need to do. It doesn't cost you any money. You don't need to watch the videos. You don't need to subject yourselves to our faces, which are not like Sydney Sweeney's. You don't need to do that. But you can if you like. And some people do like watching the program, but just. Just do it. Subscribe, and then also encourage your friends and family, in fact, steal their phones from them when they're not looking and subscribe. Do it very quickly and then give the phones back. You know, that's all we're asking.

We have learned, by the way, from some articles in the last couple of weeks that a lot of people are using YouTube as a kind of iPhone or Android phone. They listen to podcasts over YouTube, like, while they're making dinner or something. And so you can do that. You never have to look just Just, just, you know, if you have your laptop or your iPad in the kitchen and you open it to YouTube, you can listen to us and never even.

[Christine Rosen]

Look at our making it sound like we're monsters.

[Abe Greenwald]

I was just gonna say we do have faces for radio, but that doesn't mean they that we don't try to.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, you don't have a face for Steve.

I have a face ste only face that we expose to the public.

You just had you on for 60 minutes while like talk on the side and your dog and your adorable dog. Yes. Okay. Well we are doing a mailbag episode today going to readers with their questions as we do on not just on occasion but but now I think we're going to try to do it weekly at least through the rest of the summer. And I am going to begin with John from Hollywood who says I was excited to listen to some conversation that you had about Central and South America and its importance in the 1980s and its relative lack of importance in the American conversation since I've just finished the Massacre at El Mazote and Bitter Fruit by Stephen Kinzer when your mailbag episode aired last week, I appreciated Christine's comment last week about younger people not thinking about Latin America in historical context, but it seemed like you glossed over how horrible the regime in El Salvador was and how debatable the communist threat was in Chile or with Arbenz in Guatemala. Fun debate point. Were the Allen Dulles Cold War warrior types actually acting like woke progressives but instead of thinking everything is about race, tried to say everything is about communism. So this is really like old home week. This is where I came in to public as a person in the common American conversation about policy. When I graduated from college in 1982, the main issues in American foreign policy the main issue in American foreign policy was our involvement in the civil war in El Salvador and what the Reagan administration was intending to do about the unquestionably communist regime that had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. Although there had been an interim it was sort of like Iran. There had been an interim democratic election. The Sandinistas took over that election and started sort of creating a mini Cuba on the American subcontinent. So that's the main question here is why did this stop? Why did we stop paying attention? I'm only quickly going to take up the El Salvadoran point, which is that the regime in El Salvador that was being opposed and assaulted by a Soviet backed Cuban backed militia group called the fmln, that rebel force was monstrous and evil and the government of El Salvador, as was true of all these governments in Central and South America that were fighting against efforts to overthrow them, was pretty savage. I mean, there's no question that they behaved horribly and that their militaries behaved horribly. But in 1982, the United States effectively brought about what we would now view as regime change in the form of a democratic election in El Salvador that brought a reformist government led by a man named Duarte to power under our express, you know, understanding that we were not going to be able to continue to help El Salvador in this way, not get overthrown the way the Sandinistas were overthrown because of the human rights record of the government that was there. So in fact, the United States was a reformist force in Central America in the 1980s. And indeed there was an astonishing wave of democratic elections not only in Central but in all across America and South America. And of course, including the staggering and surprising loss in a free election that was that Pinochet attempted to rig in Chile, that was that he was unable. That he was unable successfully to. To rig. So this is a complicated story. You can't deny the savagery of the regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador, the Somoza regime in Nicaragua and others, but we actually stood against those regimes by the time the 1980s rolled around.

And let's just not forget that there was one nation that did not have an anti communist autocrat in power, and that was Cuba. And unlike the rest of Latin America, with the exception of Nicaragua, which is backsliding into tyranny, Cuba remains a communist junta dictatorship where no human rights are allowed. And so this was the basis of Jean Kirkpatrick's argument in Democracies and Double Standards in commentary in 1979, that the way to get to a better situation vis a vis the communist threat was to support these anti communist autocrats. And just one recommendation, since the books named are not my favorite books on the topic. So I would just urge John from Hollywood to maybe pick up Against All Hope the Prison Memoirs of Armando Validares, the Cuban Dissident. A beautiful book which shows you the nature of these regimes, that yes, you have to make hard compromises in order to prevent from taking power.

The Kirkpatrick was very important because she was writing about Argentina in Dictatorships and Double Standards, which also had an insurgency and a terrible regime that did terrible things. But it turned out that this argument that she was proposing, which is that authoritarian regimes can morph or can. Can be led to liberalize, but that totalitarian communist regimes cannot and that proved to be correct. And not just on the continent of South America. It proved to be correct in Taiwan, it proved to be correct in South Korea, it proved to be correct in the Philippines. This is a story of the end of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century that is little told for the final point that John and Hollywood makes, which is the question of whether or not there was a kind of wokeness, conservative wokeness in opposing communism or using communism as a kind of catch all for what it is that we should oppose and arbed. The overthrow of Arbenz in 1954 in Guatemala being the, this, this sort of test case of that, I mean Communism, international communism was very bad in the 1950s. And to remember what was going on in the world of Soviet influence in the 1950s, direct Soviet action, this, I mean Guatemala was a sort of indirect support, early support for a regime. But not only did Cuba fall, but you know, the Soviets invaded Hungary on their own border when Hungary dared seek liberalization of the regime that it had helped install in 1948, tens of thousands of people were killed. Hundreds of thousands of people were arrested. A lot of people were able to escape because of the poorest border, were actually able to escape from Hungary and to make their, a new life in the West. So one of the reasons that they had, they built the Berlin Wall in 1961 was to prevent the kind of exodus from a communist state that had happened when Hungary was overrun by, by the Soviets. So this was a struggle, this was a, this was a worldwide struggle. Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

I would just add, I mean, one thing to consider, particularly in the case of El Salvador and some of these other, the conflicts throughout the 80s and 70s and 80s, is that there was a tendency among historians to retroactively, especially given the immigration crisis coming out of that El Salvador crisis and a lot of the, the collapse of some of these regimes and some of the human rights rights abuses that have been documented. There was a tendency to, to sort of retroactively go back and say, look at, look at this neat thread of narrative where the United States makes sure we go in and fight communism in these ways. And it wasn't that we weren't trying to do that, but there were in many of these cases, some, I wouldn't call it wokeness, I would call it more mission creep. There were strategic interests, there were, there were certainly financial concerns, there were arms trades going on. There was a lot of stuff going on that when you think about it, I go back to the class, I took an evening class as an undergrad when I was a scholarship student, and it was me and about 20 Army Reservists who were all getting their degree at night. And we, we studied war in American Empire. And it was fascinating to take that class with a bunch of soldiers because their understanding of what the American military was sent out to do in foreign countries at that time, and many of them had family in the military who had fought in some conflicts, was quite different from the story I'd learned in my history book. So I would say that there is a tendency to neaten a narrative about some of the conflicts in these countries that maybe a new generation of historians have the duty to both what Matt said take on board the experiences of people at the time, what we, what our, as a nation, our best intentions were, but also some of the unintended consequences of our intervention in those regions.

[John Podhoretz]

However, just to push back on that, because Matt mentioned that the books that John in Hollywood. John from Hollywood mentioned are not favorites of ours like Stephen Kinzer's. Those books were written as an effort to influence policy in the 1980s. Yes, to say we've always been evil in Central America and we've been evil now, and it's the same evil, and we're evil and we're bad and we're terrible. It wasn't a correction of the record. It was a.

[Abe Greenwald]

It was a revision of.

[John Podhoretz]

I'm sure if we go into the Commentary archive, we can find a review of the Massacre at El Mazote, which, let us just say, would be skeptical.

Hey, it's John here.

[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

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[John Podhoretz]

Letter from Joe Carroll. I want to read, not in full because it's very long but but I think makes an important point about something that we talked about last week. He says I'm a proud prince subscriber, a Zionist and a Roman Catholic like my co religionist Ross Douthat. After today's episode, the one that he wrote in about, I want to mention one thing about the historical precedents more that Douthit included in his Times July 26 column, How Israel's war became unjust. It is standard in the Catholic tradition to hold the firebombing, to hold that the firebombing of Dresden and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were immoral for the simple reason that it was. It is evil to intentionally target civilians and by extension civilian population centers in war. War Dresden was morally impermissible for the same reason that the Blitz was impermissible. The Blitz was morally worse. But the fact of aggression does not make it any more acceptable to take up the evil weapons of the enemy. That's because I explained that the destruction of Dresden in 1944 was explicitly done by Churchill for the purpose of answering the Blitz. That if you were going to bomb and try to. And kill tens of thousands, thousands of people in Britain at some point of your choosing, you were going to make it clear that. That. That there would be consequences for that that equaled or were worse than the. Than the. Than the offense that was done, and that that was the moral justification for Dresden. So Joe Carroll goes on to say, if Israel were adopting the moral equivalent of firebombing towns or new cities, I would be forced to side with Israel's critics. I do not believe that Israel has done any such thing. This is why I support Israel in this war. Israel has taken special care to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza. Any allegation that Israel has done the opposite is blood libel. Thus there is no need to protect Israel by way of defending Dresden. Israel. Dresden was wrong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong. October 7th was wrong. Israel's war should. Should not be counted among these events. Rostouth. It may be incorrect, but if he is, it is because he has misread the facts on the ground. He has not, in my estimation, adopted any situational principle about ethics. Unjust war is always unjust war. He is wrong about this war. I think that is. That is as eloquent a defense as could be made of this tradition of just war theory that Joe Carroll lays out. And the only defense I will make of our attack on Ross is that he didn't do it right. It's not just that he said that Israel was guilty of. Of. Of disproportionate and unjust war, but that he said that he knows that the facts don't quite support that argument, but that he feels they do. He feels that Israel is in the wrong, and that is an offense. That's not. If you're gonna actually make an argument, make an argument. It's not.

And he did like it. He did liken it to Dresden. He did. And Hiroshima. The reader who points out that they're.

Different says Ross was wrong on the facts. But I'm saying Ross didn't even entirely defend himself on the fact in this case. He said, I don't like the way this feels to me, and that is not a serious way to argue about just war.

I'd be interested. Maybe our readers and listeners can help us with this. I'd be interested in if there were Catholic defenses of the use of the atom bomb against Japan to bring the war to a Close in 1945. When we were having this discussion earlier in the week, John and I had a slight disagreement because I distinguished between the strategic bombing campaigns in Europe from the use of the atom bomb. But I wonder if other thinkers have done that in the past. I just don't know.

Okay, so Abe, let me throw this one to you. This is Steve Swan writes, even though he's taken up with me, I wonder how you're going to feel about this. There is a logical fallacy inherent in John's idea that the Obama administration truly believed in a collusion narrative, because all of us believed in a collusion narrative. We all believed it because we were told by credible press reports that the intelligence community was actively investigating collusion and possessed evidence. But the Obama administration knew this was incredible at the time of those reports. We wouldn't have believed the collusion narrative then if we had had all of the information available to the administration. And then he goes on to say Comey was working hard to plant the narrative. He was likely duped by a fake email from Debbie Wasserman Schultz that was included in a trove of hacked email emails. Obama principals were racing to the pollution narrative into the media, not just because they believed it, because they wanted to establish a fake record in order to get the Steele dossier out to make the life of the incoming Trump administration and Trump himself insupportable. So what do you what, given the events of the last week and some of the things that have come out in the last week, what do you make of that?

[Christine Rosen]

Well, the way I look at it is that the Obama administration, the Democrats generally didn't understand Trump at all, didn't understand the Trump phenomenon, didn't understand popularity, and assumed that he was evil. And whatever possible bad things one could do, he was doing. And I think this was their effort to sort of piece together an explanation that's not good enough. That that is, I mean, do I, do I Think it's, it was their attempt to invent a story out of whole cloth. I sort of don't, but I don't know that that, that changes much because it wasn't a real story. So that, that's where I stand.

[John Podhoretz]

So where I fell on this spectrum was, you know, I do think there were some moments during the 2016 campaign where Trump's relationship with Putin and Russia and the relationship of Michael Flynn, one of his most die hard supporters, who was then his first national security adviser, and Russia were, you know, questionable. And of course, remember the famous, in retrospect, pseudo joke that Trump said in the spring of 2016, you know, Russia, if you're listening, let's release those emails and some things like that. And then that came into the transition and then of course, the leak of the dossier and everything. But I would find I pretty quickly came to the conclusion, conclusion that the Russiagate story was very similar to the Plaingate story of the Bush administration. And for people of a certain age or with long memories, this was the story surrounding 13 words in President Bush's State of the Union address in 2003 about attempts by Saddam Hussein to pursue yellow cake material that could be used for a bomb in, in Africa. And this spiraled into a scandal that obsessed Washington for a while over who had revealed that the wife of the man who had been sent to investigate whether Saddam was purchasing the yellow cake was a CIA agent. Her name was Valerie Plain. The husband was Ambassador Joe Wilson. And the investigation into to who leaked this name to the journalist Robert Novak and to a couple of other people spiraled out of control. It involved Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel looking into it, friend of Jim Comey's, by the way. It terrorized Karl Rove for years. He had an indictment hanging over his head for years. It eventually resolved, resulted in the perjury conviction of my friend Scooter Libby, later pardoned by President Trump. Not President Bush, President Trump. And at the end of the day, we found out that the person who leaked the name was Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State and an opponent of the Iraq War. And so we had gone through this whole business for years over absolutely nothing. And that when I saw what was happening with Russia was basically the same thing. That's when I began to change my view of Trump's relationship with Russia and also my view of kind of the skullduggery that was clearly going on behind the scenes on the part of Comey, Brennan and Clapper.

[Matthew Continetti]

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I'm Mark Halpern. I want to let you know that Two Way Tonight, the destination for the best political news and analysis anywhere, is now available as an audio podcast. Each weekday I'll be joined by special guests from the worlds of news, politics and the media, along with members of the two Way community for conversations like no other. It's the best way to stay informed at the end of your day or first thing in the morning. Every weekday. It's a show like no other because we involve the community. We hear from people from around the country, around the world. They're part of a conversation. There is no other platform like this and I hope you will find it to be not only different than everything else, but more meaningful as you become part of, of a special community around the program. So listen and follow two Way Tonight with Mark Alperin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other major streaming platform.

[John Podhoretz]

The minute that this flipped for me, because I did, I did think that. I didn't think that Trump was an agent of Putin. I did think that it was possible there were people in his circle who were compromised and that there was a temptation to the Trump that things may have happened because Trump thought he wasn't going to win the presidency, where he was keeping lines of conversation open with Putin because the Trump Organization had real estate interests it might have wished to pursue in Russia that I found credible. It was the moment at which I was told time and time again that it was really, really difficult to get what is called a FISA warrant to spy on an American on the grounds that that American was compromised by a foreign intelligence service. And that the only way that you could get such a wiretap or listen in or do or do that kind of intelligence on an American citizen, which is ordinarily against the law, is to go to this Special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act court, and that it was really hard, and that the standard that the court pursued was either almost certitude that the person who was being surveilled was guilty of the crime that they needed to develop intelligence on. And so I assumed, when we found out that there were these FISA warrants or the specific FISA warrant on someone named Carter Page, that they knew that Carter Page was a Russian agent and he wasn't. And not only wasn't he an agent, but that the FISA warrant had been gotten the way you get candy at a children's birthday party or a slice of pizza at a children's birthday party. And that the FISA warrants used. It's the fact that. That the FBI wanted to look into Carter Page as the evidence that the FBI should be given the legal right to wiretap Carter Page. That's what it was, a completely circular thing. And the FISA court was not tough. It was a rubber stamp, and it did something illicit. And once we found out that that was the case, then it was like, okay, you guys have just slipped all bonds of legality and rationality, and you are just. This is just a witch hunt. But it took a long time to get that piece of evidence out.

I just. I just want to recommend Sarah Bedford at the Washington examiner has compiled a timeline of the Russia story which came out yesterday. And if you Google Sarah Bedford, Washington Examiner, Russia.

You should get it.

And it is remarkable. I mean, I never really had this. The chronology laid out, but it gets to this point about Carter Page. He did nothing. He had. He had traveled to Russia.

That was it. Yeah.

And he wasn't even that close with the campaign, but then they used. They used that to get the FISA in order to survey Trump officials.

Yeah, it is.

It's remarkable. And I think people are justly outraged and continue to be with.

With the latest revelations. Okay, so last. Last thing is. Comes from. I'm sorry, I just lost my window here. Comes from Philip Stahl and Christine, maybe you can. This is not really a question, but it's a statement in anger. Britain appeased Hitler until he started World War II and did nothing to prevent the murder of. Of millions of Jews during the war. France surrendered to Hitler and then willingly and energetically sent thousands of Jews to their deaths in Nazi extermination camps. Their current attempt to enable terrorists and stop Israel from defending itself and securing The Jewish homeland should not surprise us. So Christine, this gentleman is making reference to the government, the Vichy government in France, the Chamberlain government, and then I guess the Churchill government following it in Britain. This was a long time ago. It's 80 years since the war ended. France has gone through two different constitutions since then. There have been 22,000 prime ministers of Britain since then. We have the experience of World War II and what happened to educate us. Is it fair to historically say because of the behavior of Britain and France, France in the years before World War II and then during World War II, that what they are now doing by saying they'll recognize a Palestinian state or that they will accuse Israel of crimes, that's just the same old, same old.

[Abe Greenwald]

I don't think it's, I don't think it's fair to judge current, certainly UK and current French governments by the standards of their behavior in the previous century. I think we should just judge them by their behavior now. France in particular, which, which loves to do this global performative humanitarianism where they, you know, declare things with no intention of actually putting their own soldiers at risk, people at risk, taking any risk at all. Macron is a perfect example of this. But the elite institutions in France have long harbored, cultivated and encouraged anti Semitism, anti Zionism. There was a substack that came out the other day by someone talking about the Sciences Po, very fine institution in France which is bringing in these students from Gaza and elevating them. And then this writer took a look at one of these students social media feeds which is just filled with vile anti Semitic statements, terroristic encouragement even. So I would say France has been long gone on that score for a very long time, particularly among its elite, which comes, gets funneled through a handful of institutions, through its examination process, which then go into political and academic and cultural leadership positions. The UK slightly different. I think some of their, their Labour government obviously longtime anti Semitism there, their elite aristocratic class, long time anti Semitism there. So I would, I would encourage our letter writer to look at the more recent past and I think he would perhaps come to similar judgments, but based on the behavior of contemporaries rather than historically. They have not abetted themselves. Well, Canada has joined their ranks now by also saying they're going to recognize Palestinian statehood.

[John Podhoretz]

I just want to conclude by making one point about Britain in 1939 that is not well known. So when Neville Neville Chamberlain pursued the strategy of appeasement, which is now a dirty word, when he pursued the strategy of appeasement, which is give it's basically give Hitler what he wants and he'll go away. Appeasement was not a dirty word. It was a tool in the toolbox of international negotiations and international diplomacy. It became a term of abuse or whatever. You know, it became a sort of dirty word because it was used to attempt to deal with a revolutionary irredentist force that could not be appeased because it didn't have an interest of living within the international system. It wanted to turn over, destroy, overthrow the Internet and take it over. So Chamberlain was acting in innocence. There was this one, this, you know, stentorian voice there in Britain, Winston Churchill, saying, don't believe him, don't trust him, don't make any deals with him. When, when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, on 3 September 1939, Chamberlain talked to the British people. And then later in he. He said, you can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Hitler's action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force. This is two days after the invasion of Poland. And then later he spoke to the House of Commons. This was a Sunday, so the House of Commons had never met or hadn't met in 200 years or something on a Sunday because it's the Lord's day in Britain. And here's what he said. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins. There is only one thing left for me to do that is devote what strength and power I have to forwarding the victory of the cause for which we have sacrificed so much. So Neville, Neville Chamberlain, whose name I think is properly viewed as a cautionary example of wrongness in policy of a world historical nature, instantly recognized how wrong he had been and sought to make amends and to apologize to his people and to the world for what he had done. And so while we look back and say they all stank or they were all terrible or Chamberlain was terrible, he was in fact an honorable man pursuing what he thought was an honorable course, that in the history of mankind had never really come face to face with what a modern totalitarian monster like Hitler would do and simply was ill equipped to understand what was in front of him. And once it was inarguable what was in front of him, he did, said and behaved in a moral and noble fashion.

[Christine Rosen]

Can I just then. So to Christine's point and in light of what you said they stink more today because they do know what they're facing and have had every reason to understand what they're facing and, and what, and what their actions mean yeah so.

[John Podhoretz]

They, they, they'd be lucky to be considered right as Chamberlain by this point you know I mean it's not as.

Though right you know John Douglas Murray is very fond of quoting Churchill's eulogy for Neville Chamberlain and that's something worth looking up as well because Churchill himself made similar points as, as you just.

Did I can only, I can only hope I've often thought of a figure yeah that's me only an avoir dupois am I a Trichellian figure Anyway we will, we will leave it there we'll be back on Monday have a wonderful, wonderful weekend For Matt, Abe and Christine I'm John Potoric Keep the candle bur.