Car Talk

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "Car Talk" – Detailed Summary

Episode Information

• Title: Car Talk
• Release Date: March 27, 2025
• Host: Commentary Magazine
• Participants: John Podhoretz (Editor), Abe Greenwald (Executive Editor), Matthew Continetti (Washington Commentary Columnist), Christine Rosen (Social Commentary Columnist)

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1. Introduction to Tariff Announcement

Timestamp: 01:10 – 05:15

The episode kicks off with a significant focus on recent economic developments. Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on auto parts and automobiles imported into the United States, set to take effect the following week.

Abe Greenwald highlights the shift from Trump's earlier, country-specific tariffs (e.g., Japan, China) to this broader, product-specific approach targeting the auto industry—a major sector, being the third or fourth largest in the U.S. economy. He emphasizes the inflationary impact, especially on average consumers who must purchase increasingly expensive vehicles.

“...anything that makes them more expensive is inflationary and regressively inflationary, since it will hit people who buy cars who have less money and more money, unless this then drives them into the secondary market...”
– Abe Greenwald at [04:10]

2. Impact on the Automotive Market and Inflation

Timestamp: 05:15 – 11:25

John Podhoretz notes that approximately 50% of new cars sold in the U.S. would be subject to the new tariffs, even if assembled domestically with parts sourced internationally. This includes major manufacturers like Volvo, potentially pushing consumers toward more expensive used cars, exacerbating inflation.

Christine Rosen points out an exception within the U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement, where certain auto parts from Mexico remain exempt. However, she agrees that overall prices for both new and used cars are likely to rise due to the increased costs.

“...there is an unfortunate... the law of supply and demand means ... the American product won't get more expensive also because of the laws of supply and demand.”
– Abe Greenwald at [20:10]

3. Trump’s Trade Policy Strategy

Timestamp: 11:25 – 22:40

The discussion delves into Trump’s broader trade strategy, where tariffs serve as leverage to entice foreign companies to invest in the U.S. Instead of a blanket application, the tariffs are used selectively to stimulate domestic production.

John Podhoretz suggests that Trump's approach may include negotiating with automakers to build new factories in states like Ohio or Tennessee to avoid tariffs, subsequently celebrating these as policy victories.

“...the tariff threat is a means of leverage to get foreign auto companies to come to Trump and say, hey, you know what? In order to avoid the tariff, we want to build a new factory in Ohio.”
– John Podhoretz at [11:49]

Abe Greenwald critiques the long-term economic feasibility, questioning whether the tariffs will genuinely lead to increased domestic manufacturing or merely cause short-term disruptions and consumer pain.

“...problem is getting from 2025 to 2035. That's the YADA yada yada problem...”
– Abe Greenwald at [15:52]

4. Economic and Political Implications

Timestamp: 22:40 – 31:48

The panel examines the potential repercussions of the tariffs on the U.S. economy and the Republican Party's evolving base. Abe Greenwald raises concerns about increased inflation disproportionately affecting the working class, who may already feel the strain from economic shifts.

John Podhoretz acknowledges Trump's love for foreign direct investment and suggests that tariffs might be a strategic tool to encourage companies to relocate to the U.S., thereby garnering political capital.

“...this would lead to the policy outcome I would like, an American attack on Iran... you want to have a private Secretary of State... It's all going to be a Big show.”
– John Podhoretz at [41:12]

Christine Rosen highlights the confusion in messaging from the White House, juxtaposing national security justifications with assurances that the economy won't suffer, leading to market uncertainty.

“...the message coming out of the White House is it's confusing, which is leading to confusion in the markets too.”
– Christine Rosen at [14:44]

5. Historical Comparisons and Future Outlook

Timestamp: 31:48 – 47:21

The conversation draws parallels between the current tariff strategy and past trade conflicts, such as the Harley Davidson tariff war. Matthew Continetti and Christine Rosen discuss how previous tariff impositions led to mixed outcomes, often disadvantaging the intended beneficiaries.

Abe Greenwald warns of the broader economic implications, including potential disruptions in the housing market and stock fluctuations. He emphasizes the difficulty in achieving desired long-term economic stabilization amidst such policies.

“...unless the overall income growth outpaces the rise in prices attributed to Trump tariffs, then it's a major problem for Trump and the Republicans.”
– John Podhoretz at [22:40]

6. Administration’s Handling and Public Perception

Timestamp: 47:21 – 58:33

The panel transitions to discussing internal administrative challenges and public perception issues, particularly surrounding Social Security and other welfare programs. They critique officials like Howard Lutnick for being out of touch with average Americans’ understanding of Social Security.

Christine Rosen underscores the critical importance of Social Security to voters, noting that any perceived threats to its stability could undermine Republican support.

“...a 70 year old person who does not have any money can. The only people who say they need their Social Security payments are scammers.”
– Christine Rosen at [54:35]

John Podhoretz argues that the administration's handling of these issues, coupled with mixed messaging, could erode trust among key voter demographics.

“...the mysteries and scandals coming from this administration don't involve the president. And it's just such a weird state...”
– John Podhoretz at [34:13]

7. Conclusion and Sidetracks

Timestamp: 58:33 – End

The latter part of the episode shifts focus to cultural commentary, specifically a Broadway production of Othello starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. While insightful, this segment diverges from the primary discussion on tariffs and trade policy.

Abe Greenwald critiques Washington’s portrayal of Othello, suggesting it lacks the necessary gravitas for the character, thereby diminishing the play’s tragic impact.

“...He plays Iago as a kind of bro. He is mostly sort of physical. ... it's fundamentally a bad interpretation.”
– Abe Greenwald at [63:58]

John Podhoretz humorously recommends watching a baseball game, wrapping up the episode on a lighter note.

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Key Takeaways

1. Trump's 25% Auto Tariff: A strategic move targeting the auto industry to boost domestic manufacturing but potentially leading to increased consumer prices and inflation.

2. Economic Impact: Significant tariffs on major sectors like automobiles could have long-term inflationary effects, disproportionately affecting the working class.

3. Political Strategy: Tariffs serve as leverage to attract foreign investment, reinforcing Trump's image as a champion of American workers while navigating ambiguous policy implementations.

4. Administration Challenges: Mixed messaging and perceived disconnect from average Americans on critical issues like Social Security could undermine Republican support.

5. Historical Parallels: Lessons from past trade wars indicate that broad tariffs may not yield the intended economic benefits and can result in unintended consequences.

6. Cultural Diversion: The episode concludes with a critique of a Broadway production, illustrating the podcast's breadth but signaling a departure from the main economic discussion.

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Notable Quotes:

• Abe Greenwald at [04:10]: “Anything that makes them more expensive is inflationary and regressively inflationary, since it will hit people who buy cars who have less money and more money...”

• John Podhoretz at [11:49]: “...the tariff threat is a means of leverage to get foreign auto companies to come to Trump and say, hey, you know what? In order to avoid the tariff, we want to build a new factory in Ohio.”

• Christine Rosen at [14:44]: “The message coming out of the White House is it's confusing, which is leading to confusion in the markets too.”

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the primary discussions on trade policies, economic implications, political strategies, and internal administration challenges, providing a clear overview for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

Hope for the best Expect the worst.

[Abe Greenwald]

Some preacher pain some die of worse no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect a waste of for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily Podcast. Today is Thursday, March 27, 2025. I'm John Podhortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi John.

[Abe Greenwald]

Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi Matt.

[John Podhoretz]

Hi John.

[Abe Greenwald]

And Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi John.

[Abe Greenwald]

So Donald Trump last night declared that there is going to be a 25% tariff flat across the board on auto on auto parts and automobiles made outside the United States. And it's going into effect next week. So the period of uncertainty regarding whether or not he would actually lower the boom and do the tariffs, which were before largely country directed, unless I'm very much mistaken. I mean, it was like we're going to tariff Japan, we're going to tariff China, we're going to tariff. This is now a specific set of products and it's very, very big because I believe this is the third largest or the fourth largest sector of the economy. And aside from housing, of course, the car is the most expensive object that people buy that ordinary people must own and have to buy. And anything that makes them more expensive is inflationary and regressively inflationary, since it will hit people who buy cars who have less money and more money, unless this then drives them into the secondary market, which of course then inflates Volvos.

[John Podhoretz]

Which are the least produced in the United States of major car companies, but.

[Abe Greenwald]

Apparently 50% of the cars currently sold in the United New cars are currently sold in the United States will fall under this tariff. As I understand it, many parts are.

[John Podhoretz]

Sourced from outside, even if vehicles are assembled here. Interestingly enough, the two companies who are, according to Axios, completely manufactured in the United States are Tesla and Rivian. And Rivians are insanely expensive already, so they'll be safe from the tariff. It's not quite right to say that this is the first sectoral sectorial tariff. You know, Trump has tariffed steel, he's tariffed aluminum, he just tariffed copper the other day. So now I guess he's moving from commodities to and to an industry, the car industry, autos, with the 25% tariff, this would be in addition to all the other tariffs. So if you have the reciprocal tariffs coming on April 1, what Trump calls liberation day on the EU, which could be anything from a 20% tariff on EU products, this auto tariff would be on top of it for European manufactured cars. So that, that gets to the point where the producers would have really no room but to pass off some of the cost onto the consumers.

[Christine Rosen]

Is there one exception where there was something about the U.S. mexico Trade Agreement participants and auto parts and them those parts coming as part of that agreement are exempt from this tariff. Although to your point, Matt, it's still going to lead to a rise in prices for anyone trying to fix or buy a car because of all the other parts that are being.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, well, that's interesting. And what it leads to is what I was about to say is like all the tariff threats, it's not done until it's done. So he's saying this is coming next week. We really don't know what's going to happen in the end. He could decide to delay them. He could decide to say, well, right, Mexico has been good. He seems to like Claudia Sheinbaum. So we're not going to tariff the parts coming from Mexico. And this is, this is just the way his trade policy works. It's extremely ambiguous and it really just gives him the maximum discretionary power to determine what's tariff and what's not. Just one other point on this. You know, the big story in automobiles for the past couple of years has been the rise of Chinese electric vehicles, in particular byd, which are flooding the markets overseas. Biden, of course, put on 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. But even here, I think we can view the Trump tariffs on autos as a way to basically stop the eventual reach of Chinese electrics into, into the United States. So there, there, I think geopolitical reasons for this as much as there are just Trump's tariff, tariff man love for protectionism.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, I, that's putting lipstick on a pig the big way. Since of course we would have a bipartisan putting tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles on the grounds that they represent kind of a threat to national security, as was the case with certain types of tariffs on. Or tariffs is not the right word. Import controls in the 1980s on certain types of computer products and others even to genuinely friendly countries like Japan, done in the name of the idea that we needed to maintain technological supremacy in these fields and that we did not have sufficient controls over whether or not the, the intellectual property that was being sold to these places would not then be ripped off, stolen and used to the detriment of the United States. But that's not really how he's selling it. And as I say, like, I don't think, I think every administration would have pursued a policy like this. So the question you got to look at is if we did economics on a timeline and we did them on a 10 year timeline, we had a 10 year plan, which of course we shouldn't because the economy is too dynamic for that. But if what you wanted to say was that in 10 years, if you really do this and you hold it in place, that the entire world market would shift, that there would be new construction of certain types of plants in the United States, take care of the domestic market, that maybe China wouldn't zoom ahead with its electric car market because it is kind of depending on countries that will have the infrastructure to support electric cars if they're going to be sold, meaning us since no other. I mean, I don't think they're, you know, in, in Brazil, they're building charging stations and that, that sort of thing. And you were to look in 2035 and say, well, this was a wildly successful policy. We redomesticated the auto industry. We compelled auto companies to build plants here rather than there. We, we gave a real boost to domestic manufacturing. And after a period of unsettlement, of unsettling uncertainty and all of that, things are rebalanced. Cars are a little more expensive, but way more Americans are employed. And the American economy is now being run in America with its most expensive consumer good. Problem is getting from 2025 to 2035. That's the YADA yada yada problem, which is what's going to happen to inflation, what's going to happen to the stock Market. What is it going to be like for people now who have to deal with a market that is going to go into complete chaos? And again, it's not like it's the toothpaste market or it's the you toothbrush market. This is a product that even in its used form, costs people a significant amount of their annual income or requires them to borrow money at a significant amount that they will often borrow at what might be uxorious rates, depending on where the, where the interest rates are. I mean, so Trump, we have this discussion also about things like Social Security reform and Medicare reform and all kinds of reforms that involve the entirety of the economy, which is, let's take not even government reforms, but changing the mortgage interest deduction for homes. Right. Which is a distorting effect on the cost of homes. Terrible distorting effect. It was a mistake. We should never have done it. But we've had it for almost 70 years. And if you lift it suddenly, people's homes are gonna be worth 35% less than they were before, 25% less than they were before, and it'll all shake out. But the shakeout period is impossible, is a period of unbelievable uncertainty. And you're talking about people who are going to be immiserated by this decision to sort of, you know, downshift the American economy or rebalance the American economy. And that's why it doesn't get done. That's why it never gets done. Because nobody can figure out how to get from here to the yada, yada, yada to the glorious future in which everything gets restabilized.

[Matthew Continetti]

And if I had to bet, I'd say it won't get done this time. I mean, Trump pretends that there's a ten year plan. There's not a ten day plan. As Matt says, tariffs aren't, they don't happen till they happen. And even when they happen, they can last a day or a weekend or a few days.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, I agree with Abe. What have we seen with Trump so far in the second term? Obviously a lot. But one theme that I've detected is his love of foreign direct investment in the United States, his celebration whenever an international company says that it's going to invest in the United States, whenever this happens, he has a photo op at the White House, he gets the announcement, he chalks it up as another win. So I think you can also look at the tariff threat, the auto on autos, as a means of leverage to get foreign auto companies to come to Trump and say, hey, you know what? In order to avoid the tariff, we want to build a new factory in Ohio. And when they do that, he's going to have a photo opportunity. He's going to say, look, with, this is a wonderful thing. Oh, and maybe I'll, maybe I'll make an exception or maybe I'll delay, delay some of the tariffs on it. So I, it's a big number to get big headlines, but in the actual implementation, I think it might not be as dramatic as some people say.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, well, so the policy, so what we're supposed to now think is that, nah, it's all right. He doesn't really, he, not, not that he doesn't mean it, but that it'll, it'll all work out somehow. He'll, he'll, he'll pull back from the brink. He won't really do it. He's not really going to do it. At some point, he's really, I didn't say that. I didn't say that at all.

[John Podhoretz]

I said he's going to, Toyota is going to, Toyota's going to say. I said, Toyota's gonna say, right, Mr. Trump, we're, we, we love you so much. In order to avoid these tariffs, we're going to build a new plant in Tennessee. And when they do that, he's going to say, beautiful, wonderful. This is all I want to do. Come to the White House, come to my new patio on the Rose Garden, and we're going to talk. And then we're going to go and we're going to give a press announcement and it's going to be another example of me winning. But, and then maybe he'll lift the.

[Christine Rosen]

Tariff and maybe won't, but it's a really mixed message. I went and read the little fact sheet that the White House put out about the upcoming auto tariffs. And half of it, the first half is all about national security. I'm doing this under the, with the authority that's vested in the president to place tariffs on other countries as a matter of national security, the supply chain issues that Matt mentioned earlier. But then the second half is all arguments for why it's not going to make the economy worse, why it's not going to cost, lead to any sort of inflationary impact on consumers. So I think that it's a strategy that relies, and perhaps this is why he does it, because it'll work. It relies on his assumption that the American people will buy both or neither argument and just wait and see what happens. But the economic markets, I think, are confused about whether this is a matter of national security and so is likely to happen and consistently have some follow through or if it's just, as you say, kind of a deal making way to get foreign investment in the US So the message coming out of the White House is it's confusing, which is leading to confusion in the markets too.

[Abe Greenwald]

I don't know. I mean, I think he means it. He likes them. He thinks that it's the magic bullet solution to all problems in the sense that it essentially, in his mind, levies taxes to help the American people on foreigners. So it's like you're going to pay a tax to sell goods in the United States and therefore I can cut taxes here. And it's, I wish, I wish that's that were true. Like if I, it would be wonderful if there was a solution to the problem of Americans being taxed too much and also wanting a government that's too large. It would be great if, if there were, you know, if you could pull one off the shelf and solve the problem. You know, the, the only other solution to the problem is some massive economic growth in the form of the creation of some entirely new market. You know, like suddenly we get fusion, we get nuclear fusion, and energy costs go to zero. And you know, and then nothing costs anything and then everything is wonderful.

[John Podhoretz]

But I think you're right, John, to look at it as, as a whole, the tariffs are one part of the Trump economic plan. They are the most disruptive part and they are also the part that is actually being implemented most rapidly. And I think that's what's causing the gyrations in the stock market. That's what's causing a lot of worry among people because the other elements of the Trump economic plan, deregulation, unleashing American energy, and then finally the tax cut are not coming online as swiftly as the tariffs. And I particularly focus on the tax cut because it seems that we're at another standstill here where the House has moved along, passing its budget resolution, laying the groundwork for maintaining and broadening the Trump tax cuts. But the Senate is holding it up. And so until you get like the elixir of tax cuts, the bitter herb of tariffs is what's going to remain in the voters mouths. That's a very biblical metaphor for me this morning.

[Abe Greenwald]

You know, I didn't realize my inner.

[John Podhoretz]

Poet would come out so early today.

[Abe Greenwald]

It was so good. But of course you have to separate these things out. Yes. So if you take it as a totality, if you get tariffs on the one hand, but you get the extension or the permanent, the permanent investment of the, of the Trump tax cuts of 2017 with some other provisions added and the, as you say, the unleashing of our domestic energy markets with some more deregulation, you could have, you know, 2027 could be an amazing year. Problem is 2025 and 2026 number. And second is that the inflationary effect, particularly of the auto and lumber tariff, if he does in fact put through a lumber tariff, are not only colossal or potentially colossal, but as I say, hit hardest not on the wealthy, but on the struggling. Because the way the, the way a readjustment of an entire consumer market, which is the automobile market is, if you may, if X happens with tariffs and puts upward pressure on prices on expensive goods and then people have to downshift into the less expensive versions, then that cap, that money is chasing too few vehicles that are being made and those go up in price and then you go ratchet down to the third level and the same thing happens there and it goes down to used cars which also jump in price. There is no escape from the inflationary force of these tariffs. And as I said, if it were the toothbrush market, you could kind of absorb it. Like the cost of this as a global policy to the American consumer is kind of unprecedented. I mean, you know, it's not, you're not even talking about like a 5% tariff or 7.5% tariff. You're talking about if it goes through.

[John Podhoretz]

The average tariffs now on auto imports is 2.5%. So this is a, so it's a 10, tenfold huge increase on tariffs. And like I say it's in addition to, or he's saying it would be in addition to the reciprocal tariffs plan for next week. So overall the cost of importing autos from overseas will go up considerably. And yeah, sure, this will have an.

[Abe Greenwald]

Effect on just the cost of automobiles, period. That's the point. If you, if you, if you levy these, if you put these levies on an entire industry of which half is part of the export market, it doesn't matter that you're not put, it doesn't matter in the short term that you're not putting them on American made vehicles, that doesn't that effect, whatever it is.

[John Podhoretz]

You would say that the cost increase on the American made vehicle would be less than the cost on the Volvo import.

[Abe Greenwald]

Of course it would. But that doesn't mean that the American product won't get more expensive also because of the laws of supply and demand.

[John Podhoretz]

It's just a question of what pinches Consumers pockets. Is it a, is it a $500 increase on their Chevy or is it a $10,000 increase on the Volvo?

[Abe Greenwald]

What do we know about the. This is something you've been talking about and is the big political shift of our time, right. That Republican Party seems to be becoming the party of the working class. And what defines someone being in the working class? There are two things. One is that they will tend to be the people who work with their hands or with their bodies. And the other is that they have less money. So if you are forcing them to spend $500 more on a car, you know, I'll go buy a car, it'll cost $500 more. I'm financing or leasing the car at a 5% interest rate. It comes out as, you know, $7 a week or something like that. It's not great, but like, it's like, it's the classic joke, right? It's the cost of a gra. Of a, of a venti latte that I'm paying. But that's me. I'm not the Trump voter who has gone Republican for the first time or has now gone Republican twice, you know, for the first time in 100 years, who is now going to suffer the consequences of Trump economic decisions. And I don't think that, that it's necessarily the case that the Republican Party has those people in a perma lock for several generations.

[John Podhoretz]

If it doesn't balance out, if it doesn't balance out and if the overall income growth doesn't outpace the rise in prices attributed to Trump tariffs, then it's a major problem for Trump and the Republicans. No one wants not advocating for increasing auto price hitting. What I'm saying is that it has to be viewed as through a large dynamic economy where the effects that we can point to directly are often dissipated or mitigated because of other factors.

[Abe Greenwald]

I agree. I just think it's an interesting wrinkle, but that if this were the old Republican Party that wouldn't have liked tariffs because it did, because it ideologically was committed to an idea about free trade that Trump does not possess the net, the net potential political damage of the tariffs would be lessened on the Republican Party. Trump is essentially aiming this major political move, political geopolitical, geo, economic, macroeconomic move, at people who are fresh, new Republicans who might form the basis of a, of an enduring coalition. And he is really going to test the strength, durability and survivability of that coalition.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, it's a very, it's already showing cracks. I mean, I think it explains in part why a few weeks ago we heard JD Vance trying to make a speech embracing both Silicon Valley technocratic elites and tying it to working class Americans and saying we're all on the same page here, even though in fact they're not at all economically, in particular on the same page, state election in Pennsylvania that a couple of politicos have been watching in Lancaster county that went 16 points to Trump in the last election and now is moving to the Democratic candidate in this election. There's some other special elections in the next week or so that people will be watching. But I was recalling, didn't we go through an earlier version of this story, season one with Harley Davidson, because remember, the Trump coalition loves Harley Davidson's and then there was this whole tariff war in his first term about Harley Davidson in India, then Harley Davidson in Thailand, and, and that ended up being this huge snafu with again, I'm still trying to piece together exactly what the, what, what happened in that whole thing. But it showed the sophistication, as Matt was saying earlier, of a global trade in any sort of manufactured goods and how many parts come from many different places. And that Trump hitting with this blunt instrument saying for national security and for the betterment of US Workers, if I just bludgeon this company or bludgeon these, this industry with tariffs, it'll all shake out in the end. It didn't work that way with Harley Davidson either. Like, it ended up being kind of a mess. So I wonder if he, I mean, he clearly didn't learn that lesson, but his base didn't seem to care. So maybe it doesn't matter if they feel a little suffering if ideologically they think that he still got their best interest.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, but the world, the market, the U.S. market for motorcycles is, you know, niche. It's small, 2 or 3% of people buy motorcycles. So the effect of raising the cost of motorcycles is considerably different. And that's also like one of those unexpected higher income.

[John Podhoretz]

There's another example, though, and that's the agricultural sector, because the tariff war of Trump won resulted in losses to American farmers. And then Trump, remember, basically bailed out a lot of American farmers to compensate them for the losses in trade that he caused through the tariff war with China. And we're going to have something similar here in 2025 and in the second Trump term. @ the same time, farmers still very strong for Trump. So I do think he has a certain amount of elasticity with his base because they continue to see him as acting on their behalf as the one politician of the last generation who actually recognizes the working class, talks to the working class and, and wants to be that class's champion.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, I mean, we are not homo economic us. Right? We are not. This is if there any lesson of the last 40 years should be, you know, coming home to people is despite the it's the economy stupid slogan, people are motivated by many other concerns aside from not. I mean, it's a weird thing because inflation does cut through most of that and inflation, because it is, it is the direct experience of people on a daily basis in their interactions using the money that they make with the sweat of their brow. But people do think that Trump is their tribune and they think it for all kinds of reasons that are undeniably true. Right. He is defending two genders. He is essentially defending religion. He is defending Israel, which is a far more important issue than people realize in sectors of the economy. Far away from the, you know, from the pages of Commentary magazine, he is defending things that Democrats have abandoned or are on the attack on. And so they're right to look at him and say, well, he cares about us and what we care about. And so, yeah, it's not that he is without resources or political resources to help attempt this thing. It's just one weirdness of it is that he is the only person outside of, you know, Oren Cass's think tank and compact magazine that is like celebrating and pushing and advocating for tariffs. And Peter Navarro, like, this is not, it's not like he's at the, he's at the forefront of a really developed intellectual argument about why this is necessary for the American economy, which was the case when Reagan agreed to and advocated for the Kemp Roth across the board, 30% over three years tax cut. That jump started the economy in the 1980s. That was a 10 year painstaking intellectual process to make the case for the supply side that obviously many people even then and even now do not believe in. This is Trump wanting to fulfill his longtime desire to do tariffs. And he doesn't have a lot except for people being scared of him and not wanting to criticize him because he'll write a truth against you and be mean. Nobody wants these except for him. As far as I can tell, that's true.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, I agree that his base will endure a lot, but the fact remains that across the board, I mean the larger population, his numbers on handling the economy have fallen and fallen and fallen. I see no reason why that won't continue to happen if he continues with this As I say, I do think it won't happen. I don't see this, at least not for any extended period of time.

[Abe Greenwald]

It's also interesting because when you do it country by country as opposed to product by product, you do have the possibility, particularly with kind of largely state run or at least countries where the state manages the economy a lot more than even ours does. Though people seem to think that we have a state managed economy. So you put a tariff on Mexico and Claudia Scheinbaum was nice to you, then you can lift the tariff on Mexico if you put a tariff on automobiles. And yeah, maybe Toyota comes and says, we'll build another plant in Tennessee and you get a celebration. The tariff is still on the automobile industry. So it's not like you can lift them. You can add an exception here and there. It's that the overall effect doesn't, doesn't change. And to get to the national security point that Christine brought up, I think that there is an unfortunate. In terms of what we would like, or I think we would like the American people to believe and understand and a policy that we need to pursue is that China is our primary adversary in the world for the next, you know, 75 years. And the argument to be made is that we need to make sure that it does not, its economy does not become the engine of our own defeat. And we do not need to be selling them the rope or essentially providing them with the rope to hang us with. And therefore, things like tariffs as a weapon short of war could be a way of dealing with an adversary, not because it benefits us economically, but because it hurts them economically and we want them to be hurt economically. So they're not spending money on their defense, they're not spending money threatening Taiwan, they're not spending money on the Silk Road initiative, and they're not coming after us. But you weaken or you make that argument tertiary, if you say no, everyone's going to pay. Not just the Chinese electric car market, but Volvo. Yeah, like we, you know, which we don't have that much of a. But I mean, I don't, you know, don't have much of a problem with Sweden, as far as I know.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, they're very safe cars and they're a lot more expensive.

[Abe Greenwald]

They always were.

[John Podhoretz]

That's the thing. They were already expensive.

[Abe Greenwald]

They were always expensive. And the favorite car for many, many decades of the D.C. area. So of the, of the sort of lawyer, elite managerial class of the DC area. Like it was sort of like the Ford taurus of northwest D.C. the Volvo.

[John Podhoretz]

Every third car, as a, as a book that came out in Trump's first term put it, the title was Trade wars or Class Wars. So maybe we can view the tariff threat as a way to attack the latte sipping laptop working Volvo owner.

[Abe Greenwald]

Except those owners, of course, moved on to the Prius and the Tesla.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, that's. Well, there's a paradox, as I said. Like the one that's insulated is Rivian, which is extremely expensive already and you do see around the Washington D.C. area quite a bit. And then Tesla, which that laptop class now detests because of Elon's affiliation with Trump. So maybe this is a way to get them back into the Teslas.

[Abe Greenwald]

I just saw a new thing for the, for the elite class to, to start boycotting. I don't even know if it's true because it's like something I saw on TikTok or so but that apparently either the head of, or one of the leading figures in the company that runs Airbnb has now joined Doge. So now it's don't use Airbnb.

[John Podhoretz]

That's gonna be.

[Abe Greenwald]

You're not allowed to use. You can't buy, you can't drive your Tesla to an Airbnb. You have to sell or vandalize your own Tesla and you're gonna have to go stay at a married bon boy for your points rather than getting a nice house for a week.

[John Podhoretz]

Or you'll just be, you'll be home ridden, you won't be able to leave your house. You're just gonna spend all day on the laptop writing pieces about how Trump is Hitler and we're living in the 1930s Germany.

[Abe Greenwald]

He's worse than Hitler.

[John Podhoretz]

I forgot that I missed that one. The other.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, let's face it. Say what you will about Hitler, but he's no Trump. You know, he didn't, you know he didn't. He didn't not fire Defense Secretary.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

At least Hitler ran a tight ship. I mean, we are days away from.

[John Podhoretz]

I know we're having a free zone.

[Matthew Continetti]

What was the. Remember the piece what Trump can learn from Hitler?

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That was, that was crazy Bob Kutner, right? Say what you will about Hitler, but. Yeah, the founding editor.

[John Podhoretz]

I was reading an op ed in a major American newspaper yesterday talking about how the Trump IRS is now going to be assisting ICE in identifying illegal immigrants. And the op ed writer said we sound familiar. And the hyperlink on sound familiar went to an article on the Nuremberg Laws. And I mean, I just. What do you, how do you respond to that, you know, oh, Mike Walsh. I know it's a signal free zone, but I do want to point out that once again, the scandals and controversies coming from this administration don't involve the president. And it's just such a weird state of being for me, because the most controversial aspects of Trump, too, aren't actually Trump. It's Elon and Doge, or it's now this, the group chat. He's just kind of floating above it all, slapping tariffs on everyone and trying to be nice to Putin.

[Abe Greenwald]

Do you guys think? I don't want to talk about the group chat, but I do want to say this. We're going to say we don't want to talk about the group chat. 30 minutes.

[John Podhoretz]

I broke the wall.

[Abe Greenwald]

I'm sorry. But Walt and Hegseth and a couple of people yesterday said, we are having this conversation about a successful U.S. military mission. We're talking about it as though the mission did not go off, was not successful, and achieved its aims. And then we went back home. And of course, from the outset, when people start, it's like, this is not about what happened. It's about the fact that senior officials are playing fast and loose with our, you know, most secure secrets. And maybe this time we got away with it, but it's really, really dangerous. But I do wonder whether you need the crisis to have happened for something like this to be the accelerant to a major disaster for the administration, by which I mean you need there to be an Abu Ghraib moment where somebody reveals that the US Military in Iraq is behaving in egregious ways for it to gain larger purchase. And I don't think most people oppose the idea of attacking the Houthis. And I think the fact that the mission was successful as far as it went is important. And my concern now, because the Houthis just fired two rockets off at Tel Aviv this morning, which did not, which were intercepted. But is there a way in which this. This will. This is going to capture and distract the attention of our national security leadership and make them a little more hesitant about going on and doing more of this? Because it will just keep raising the question of the group chat, which they would like to see go away, in which case, it really is deeply unfortunate that it's become a story, because I think the idea was this American policy toward the Houthis was going to be long term and that we were not going to rest until they stopped firing missiles or until they were basically kind of eliminated from the chessboard.

[Matthew Continetti]

I have to Say, one thing that, believe it or not, I was impressed with by the group chat was that they were talking about hitting the Houthis in terms of the actual long term consequences. They were saying they were talking about X percent of international shipping goes through here. This is something we have to do. They weren't saying we need to make a show of force to pretend that we're doing something. So I think there's a, there is some, someone there has a deeper serious understanding of, of what actually has to be done.

[Abe Greenwald]

And I have no doubt and I.

[Christine Rosen]

Don'T think Abu Ghraib was a long time ago in people's memories. I think actually part of the reason that the response on the part of these Trump administration officials has been to double down and be defensive is the previous administration messed up and droned a family supposedly in response for the to the Abbey Gate killings of Marines. And no. And then the Secretary of defense disappeared for a week. No one even knew where he was. There was absolutely no responsibility taken. There wasn't even a discussion in the press really much about it because they were on Team Biden. So I think the Trump folks, I still think this is incorrect. I would rather they take responsibility and say we screwed up, let's move on, we won't do this again. Here are the new policies, but they're not going to do that. But we have a very recent example of the military screwing up in a major way and also not taking responsibility. So I think that for them is a justification for doubling down.

[Matthew Continetti]

That's such a good point. It's completely forgotten story. Drunk. This guy in a white car coming home from work and his kids.

[John Podhoretz]

Yes.

[Matthew Continetti]

And everyone. Yeah, yeah.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, could you.

[Abe Greenwald]

And there were similar, there were similar events. What were the group chats about?

[John Podhoretz]

What were the group chats about? Putting Biden out in front of people. I mean, were they on Signal? We don't know. But you can only imagine what the internal conversations were. We still have no idea.

[Christine Rosen]

Approved the use of Signal for a lot of these sorts of things. So.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[John Podhoretz]

If people were talking. I do agree, John, though there is a sense that the players affected by this Washington hubbub and scandal may be more, you know, maybe kind of deer in headlights when it comes to resuming the fight against, continuing the fight against the Houthis, or in my view, more importantly, what we do about Iran in the coming weeks.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, it's that Mike Tyson line, right, which is everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face. So the Jeffrey Goldberg story, whether you think it has long term consequences or not, was them getting punched in the face for the first time?

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

And it's a dynamic process. People then are now living in the world in which that happened and it will have some consequences.

[John Podhoretz]

I would say the way you move off the story is by doing something dramatic. And I think that's something that Donald Trump knows. I mean, because he's spent so many decades redirecting. Exactly.

[Abe Greenwald]

Rebalancing. Rebalancing.

[John Podhoretz]

It is interesting that at least as Washington is concerned, that hasn't happened yet. So maybe this would actually lead to the policy outcome, I would like, of an American attack on Iran. You know, that would definitely get the Signal story out of the headlines.

[Abe Greenwald]

Clearly one person who does not support the possibility of an attack on Iran, or two of them are JD Vance on the one hand and Steve Witkoff on the other. And I continue to be flabbergasted by the high level of involvement of Steve Witkoff in everything. Steve Witkoff, of course, being in the Signal chat, not a confirmed official. He's like a real estate guy that Trump sent out on the, you know, he there. The whole question of he's in Moscow, he said he wasn't using his phone, but he was on the chat. So if he wasn't using the government issued phone, what was he using? Was he using like the computer at the desk in the, in the Hotel International in Moscow? I just mean, like, so. But I mean, I just, I don't care about that. I just mean, like, it is amazing the degree to which Trump so loathes regular order that he has sort of created this kind of temporary Secretary of state and this temporary vice president, you know, Witkoff being the temporary Secretary of State and Elon Musk kind of being the temporary vice president because he just doesn't like the way the system works and finds it constricting and doesn't want anybody who could get hauled up in front of Congress as part of a regular reporting responsibility, not that they can't get subpoenaed. And there's this guy who has like spent 12 minutes maybe reading, I don't know, Brett's column in the New York Times or something like that, negotiating all over the world with countries he never heard of and groups he never heard of before and praising the gutteries and like being in Moscow saying it's wonderful that Putin prayed for Trump. It's like, weird. You know, ordinarily people would empower somebody like this and it would be like a person who ran Citibank for 30 years and was on a private mission or something like somebody was. So is more has greater credentials than the hack that he put in to be a Secretary of State and has a better personal relationship with these people and so can have a private conversation.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, I don't remember what Harry Hopkins resume was, but I mean it wasn't. I don't think he was the head of Citigroup or something. I mean that I kind of view Witkoff as kind of that a Harry Hopkins to FBI.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean there was no way Colonel.

[John Podhoretz]

House, Woodrow Wilson kind of just someone who's in the kitchen cabinet that the President trusts and is in business with and is kind of the. Yeah, as you say, a shadow Secretary of State leading these discussions. What's unique about this administration is that there are two of them. There are also Musk who's also kind of a Harry Hopkins figure. And the Trump seems to just want to have people who are loyal to him who are outside the establishment and will also present different type of views. So there's, you know, so Rubio is considered more hawkish than Witkoff. Right. That's the, that's the balance there. And JD is more dovish than waltz. Right. And Hegseth seems to be kind of in between in a lot of these cases. We know Tulsi Gabbard is more on the dovish side, but John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, he's more, a little bit more hawkish. Right. So Trump seems to like these kind of conflicting attitudes. And my theory is that's because they're a reflection of his own internal conflict where he can't quite decide whether he wants to be a dove or he wants to be a power wielding hawk.

[Abe Greenwald]

I guess the other difference is that the nature of these kinds of special envoy advisor, kitchen cabinet people was that they worked under the radar. They did not interview Vernon Jordan fixing.

[Christine Rosen]

All the Monica Lewinsky trouble behind the.

[Abe Greenwald]

Scenes before he was or I mean almost anybody that you can name. The last thing that they were going to do is go on a Sunday show. That's the whole point is that they were operating. If they were operating outside the boundaries of normal convention, they were also doing so in private. And the point was that they were private envoys sending private messages that were that I can go talk tacless to you. I was just with the President and I was just on the phone. Here's what he'd really like to say. We're not going to say it in public, but we can say it in private. And then Woodcoff is going on talk show. I assume Trump doesn't mind him going on or he would say he wants talk shows. Well, he shouldn't want him to because he's not helping him. But he, he, I'm not Trump's, you know, adviser, so I can, there's nothing I can do but like having Witkoff go on a Sunday show and say, maybe I was duped by the Houthis, by Hamas. By Hamas, excuse me, duped by my Moss. Yeah, I would make sense.

[Matthew Continetti]

But as Matt says, the scandals or semi scandals swirling around the administration are all not around Trump, so.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right. You know, so that helps him.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, certainly the Elon case I think is the most obvious example, but in some sense it all helps him in that way. They're all, as people have put it, heat shields.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, he, and he is able then to go before the people and the voters and talk in these stirring abstractions about what he's doing in Washington. Meanwhile, who's going on Fox News tonight to defend Doge Elon Musk, who's been in front of the cameras arguing for Trump's version of foreign policy? Witkoff and others. So he is, maybe he has learned something from the first term where he was the limelight hog. Right. He always wanted to be in front of the camera. And maybe he's learned that lesson that it's better to draw fire with others completely transformed his character.

[John Podhoretz]

But it is all a television show. I think that's the difference. And I do think that in this second term, Trump has decided to rather have the office shape him, which he attempted in his first term and of course struggled with and was unsuccessful in many ways conforming to the office. He has now decided to reshape the office of the presidency. And part of that plays to his strengths. One of his strengths is he is a master television producer. And so this is just the show that we're watching. And so it's all going to be in public. He wants Witkoff on television and on Tucker Carlson and he wants Mike Waltz to go on Laura Ingraham. And he loves the Executive Order Hour where every afternoon Will Scharf presents him with the order that he's about to sign and reads it aloud like a royal proclamation. And Trump has just wonderful facial expressions as Scharf is reciting the line. Yeah, he's contemplating it. He agrees with some parts. Sometimes he raises an eyebrow like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that, but he's gonna sign it anyway. It's all a Big show.

[Matthew Continetti]

It's a great point. I just want to say it's not even a show. It's. It's like he's got his own network, he's programming, he's got. He's got several shows in place.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's Johnny. Wherever, Wherever you slice it not to get, like, incredibly old, but he's Johnny Carson. That is to say, once, when it comes to it, there's one person who watches, who is watched by 40 million people, and that's Johnny Carson behind the desk. So behind the. And then. But yeah, you can have the Steve Witkoff show, you can have the. You can have the Mike Walsh show if you want that, or the Elon Musk show. The interesting thing about Musk, by the way, is that when he makes these public appearances, when he talks, I think he comes across as much more reasonable and much less crazy because he says all that. He says, look, I'm only doing this because the President asked me to help him. I'm a patriotic Amer. I want to help. I don't need to really. I don't really need to be doing this. I want to help. And I'm doing. I'm following the instructions that I'm getting from the President, United States, and I'm trying to make things better for the American people. Like that. It's when he's on X that he's a psychotic. Like, that's. It's interesting, there's two sides of his personality. Or if he's like, I don't know, hasn't taken his med. Hasn't taken his meds in half an hour, and he's in the Oval Office jumping around with his son on his shoulders.

[Christine Rosen]

The platform is designed to help people express their id. Let's just put that.

[Abe Greenwald]

That is literally a scene, right? And so. And he paid $50 billion for it. And so it's his ID, and he's there. But I suspect that his TV appearance today will be helpful to him. Like, he will not come across like a crazy person. But he. I do think it's an interesting problem. He owns a publicly traded company, and for whatever reason, however it works, and I assume he's. It's, you know, he obviously is its majority shareholder. Whatever he. Damage is being done to his company's reputation and its standing and all of that. And at some point he has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders of Tesla, stuff like that. If this gets really bad, I believe, like, I don't mean that he should not do this because People are setting fire, are being terrorists and terrorizing Teslas and terrorizing Tesla owners. But it is because of this unprecedented nature of his relationship and his behavior here in the federal government. There are quite the conflict of interest thing might well be that he's doing himself and his businesses and his employees real damage here as the Democrats decide that he is their better target. Kind of find it hard to believe that people are gonna vote against Republicans because of Elon Musk.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah. You know, it's interesting that I don't know where he's appearing. That's the first I heard. He has a big interview today on Thursday.

[Christine Rosen]

Look, it's Bret B.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. Oh, great. But he needs to. I think he needs to do some damage control on the Social Security question.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[John Podhoretz]

Because the administration has kind of not really fumbled the ball, but it sent mixed signals about the future of the Social Security administration. And this is a program third rail of American politics. You really want to get right on it. Which, of course, Trump has always made a point throughout his political career, from the very beginning, saying he's not going to touch Social Security, he's not going to touch Medicare, understanding that his coalition belongs to those programs, is supportive of those programs. In the case of Social Security, people believe, probably slightly incorrectly, that, you know, it's something. Basically it's a savings account that they get when they retire. Right. And when, in fact, it's, you know, it's just money that's transferred out of government revenues.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, if you die two years into your getting Social Security, it was a savings account. If you live. If you live one second longer.

[John Podhoretz]

Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

Than the first two years after, after you've, after you've retired and started taking Social Security. It's essentially just direct welfare payment from the government.

[John Podhoretz]

But people view it as an earned benefit. Right. So whenever, unlike other welfare and income maintenance programs, where they're more skeptical and willing to cut with Social Security, you don't want to mess around with it because people feel it, so it's theirs and they earned it. And so, yeah, I hope that Musk addresses that in his interview.

[Christine Rosen]

And this is a, this is an important point because thus far, other officials in the Trump administration have sounded absolutely out of touch with how the average American understands Social Security benefits. Was it besent the treasury secretary? Somebody went on an interview a few weeks ago.

[Abe Greenwald]

Howard Lutnick.

[Christine Rosen]

Sorry. It was Lutnick. Yes. Thank you. Still bothers me. I must have blanked on his name because of the rage I felt when he said this.

[Abe Greenwald]

I wish I could Blank, A very.

[Christine Rosen]

Very wealthy man who was saying, oh, people don't really care if there's a little glitch in their Social Security payments because, you know, my, my mother in law, she would be fine with it. You know, that sort of flippant remark shows how out of touch, they're just as elite and out of touch about some of this stuff as they're often accusing the Democrats of being. And that really struck me because a smart Republican knows you want to keep the old people, you know, absolutely certain that their Social Security check will arrive because many of them do rely on it to get through a month. And I think that's actually, it would be interesting. It'll be interesting to see if, if Musk can speak in those terms or if he'll just avoid that entirely. But that, that was a horrible thing for, for an administration official to suggest with, with such cavalier disregard for people's, you know, monthly budgets.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, Howard Lutnick has a life history of behaving in absolutely grotesquely inappropriate ways when left to his own devices. So he's easily next next to rfk. I think he is probably the worst choice for selection for cabinet secretary. And ordinarily you stick somebody at Commerce and they disappear. But he's not disappearing, unfortunately. And the Lutnick story, if people want to remember, if the name is dimly familiar to people, is that he was the managing director of the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which was on the 103rd floor of the World Trade center center and I think lost 600, 600 people who worked at Canter Fitzgerald were killed on the morning of 9 11. And Lutnick swung into action and laid off the entire firm fired everybody at the firm in a panic and shocked while everybody was in total shock and horror in this attack. It was one of these moments of sort of, wouldn't say, predatory capitalism, but it was like, what do you expect me to do? Not gonna have any income and the markets are closed and I don't have anybody working here. And somebody in the next couple of days had to impress upon him the fact that not only did he have to rescind this and work with his remaining employees and everybody to save his firm from the wrecking ball, but that he, his name would go down in history as one of the blackest names in the history of capitalism. And so he shifted, he like swung in the other direction. He was calling all the families of the, of the people who had been, oh no, it was cutting off. Excuse me, wasn't that he was firing everybody. It was that he immediately cut off the salaries of the people who had been killed so that their families were going to have no money. And this was not just, you know, like people, you know, managing directors, like there were secretaries and it people and all of that. Anyway, so there have been stories, there were stories over the subsequent decade about the sort of the re education of Howard Lutnick, how he learned how to behave and how, you know, how this hurt him and changed him. And he grew and you know, he hired PR firms to make the growing stories and all of that apparently hasn't grown because he thinks it's perfectly fine to say that a 70 year old person who does not have any money can. The only people who say they need their Social Security payments are scammers.

[John Podhoretz]

He was very casual on the all in podcast, which I watched and which I thought was very interesting when he made this comment. I do think that's part of the medium of podcast. As we all know, sometimes you say something kind of flippantly without thinking about it. Never. Yeah, I know you, you never do it, John. You're always deliberately responsible what you say. But I think that's what happened here and it's, it's damages the administration. And you know, on the one hand, Trump likes bringing people who are outside of Washington who are not part of the political class. Not so much in Lutnick's case, but in other cabinet members, people who are young. Right. Like our national Security advisor and our Secretary of Defense and our Director of National Intelligence. Even our Secretary of State is pretty young compared to some of his predecessors. But that means that they're going to be learning on the job and in government and politics. If you make a mistake, it can have major consequences down the road politically.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right, okay, so it's time for Commentary Recommends. I'm going to take on the Commentary recommends because I went to see yesterday this glittery production of Othello on Broadway with Denzel Washington.

[John Podhoretz]

Hot ticket. The hot ticket.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hot ticket. And I was there.

[John Podhoretz]

You're not gonna be able to buy a Rivian after those tickets.

[Abe Greenwald]

That's true. Well, he should slap a tariff on Shakespeare and then that's coming. Maybe this was a, this was an all American production. Let me tell you. Only one performer was British and she did a pretty bad American accent playing Desdemona. So my report on this production, which features two time Academy Award winning Denzel Washington as Othello and Jake Gyllenhaal, a very, very honored young actor as Iago, is that it's one of the first times That I can recall seeing Shakespeare, seen a lot of Shakespeare where the supporting cast was exemplary. Like characters that you don't pay much attention to if you've. I saw it a couple years ago, like Brabantio, who is in the first. Who is basically in the first scene is Desdemona's father reacting with horror to the fact that she has married this Moore, this black man, because he is this incredibly successful general who has helped save Venice and. And is obviously the most virile person on earth. And she has fallen for him because of his overwhelming musk and sexual desirability. So that's a character basically is like an old man sort of crying and screaming. And this actor, Daniel Pierce, does a magnificent job turning him into kind of a semi comic character character plays Emilia, who is Iago's actress, who plays Emilia, who is. Is Iago's wife, and delivers this astounding monologue that you forget in the middle of the fourth act, which is one of those moments where you realize that Shakespeare was genuinely a man out of time because it is essentially a feminist. It is first stage feminism. It is what it is that women can expect, what women should do with men, that men do to women, because there's literally no reason for women to live under men's sway when men behave so badly and what they could do to give it back to the men who treat them so poorly. And you read this and you realize he's writing it in the 1590s or whatever, and that somehow these thoughts would not begin to resurface on the planet Earth until the mid 19th century. You know, that kind of these moments that happen in Shakespeare where you're like, where did he come from? Like, where did this consciousness come from that is. Comes out of nowhere. And it is a genuinely great play. But I am sorry to report that Denzel Washington, while a wonderful film actor, deserving of his Oscars and one of the biggest stars of the last 40 years, just doesn't have the size to play Othello, who is a. All he is is a Titanic character. Titanic in his moods, Titanic in his feelings, Titanic in his abilities and Titanic in his idiocy and foolishness and his. The capacity to be fooled and tricked by Iago. And he just. He plays it small. And you can't play Othello small because it makes the ultimate tragedy not believable. It doesn't make it believable that this smallish kind of man would take the measure that he does or fall so prey to the green eyed monster of jealousy that he would do what he.

[John Podhoretz]

How is the other movie star, Jake Gyllenhaal?

[Abe Greenwald]

So this is a weird thing. So Gyllenhaal plays Iago as the character. No one saw this movie, but he is essentially a version of his character in a movie called jarhead from 20 years ago, where he said, a lot.

[John Podhoretz]

Of people saw Jarhead. Yeah, it's great.

[Abe Greenwald]

Nobody saw Jarhead. It was not. It was really not a hit. You saw Jarhead because you're. You're. You. But people didn't see Jarhead. But he looks like he does in Jarhead. He's in kind of like fatigues for most of the. He is Othello's lieutenant, so he's in fatigues for most of the play. But he plays Iago as a kind of bro. He is mostly sort of physical. I wouldn't say animalistic, but he's like his relations, as he's kind of getting people on his side and bluffing them into doing his bidding and all that is kind of like Eric Stratton, chairman of Delta House. Damn glad to meet you. It's all kind of like he's kind of being a bro. And it's interesting. It's an interesting. Like, he keeps your attention, but it's fundamentally a bad interpretation. Like the whole point of Iago. And then I went and I listened. You can hear our abridged version on. It's actually on the Internet archive of BBC, an abridged version in which John Gielgud is Othello and Ralph Richardson is Iago. These two maybe the greatest stage actors aside from Lawrence olivier of the 20th century. And what you get from Richardson is the lubricious pleasure of being evil and of being the plotter. And Gyllenhaal has none of that. He is more like, Othello deserves it. And I. What about me? And all of that. As opposed to the structure of the play, which is that Iago is bringing you, the viewer, this person in the audience, into his confidence to make you his accomplice. Sort of like, now watch what I'm going to do here.

[Christine Rosen]

There's. You know, I do wonder. What you're describing is a very American production. And I took my kids when they were little. We went and saw it at the reconstructed Globe Theater in London. And there it doesn't act. The size actually is immediate in terms of Othello comes on the stage and whatever actor, there's a. I forget his name. There's a wonderful British actor playing it at this production because of how you're seated in the theater is designed. He seems enormous, and that's partly the way the stage is raised. Just above the little benches you're sitting on is all by candlelight. Desdemona seems insane, but Iago is right in your face when he's plotting. And it was so mesmerizing that even two. They were pretty young. They were elementary school kids. They just sat there sort of awestruck by what was in front of them. And I wonder if putting it on a big broad on a larger stage with American actors, you don't get that scale. That, I think, is how Shakespeare wrote. I mean, he wrote for that scale.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, so 40 years ago, I saw a production, Othello, on Broadway with James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer. And that.

[Christine Rosen]

That's James Earl Jones.

[Abe Greenwald]

Great. And Christopher Plummer. So. But, I mean, this is the second time that Denzel Washington has taken a James Earl Jones part and played it on Broadway. He did Fences, which was this August Wilson play about a minor league baseball player in his 50s who's become a garbage man and his desperate unhappiness with the position that he's in. It's one of the best American plays of the 20th century. And Jones was Titanic. He was like. And he was on stage in general. He was just a force of nature, you know, he was. He was. It was one of the great performances I've ever seen. And when Denzel played it, he was kind of like a canny, wiry, kind of tricky guy. And the whole point of this play is that he keeps saying, troy, the character in Fences, I've got this demon in me, and this demon wants me to do things like take a baseball bat and smash my beloved son over the head with my baseball bat. And I am spending my entire time holding myself back from doing these things. And you could see it in his body. And Denzel doesn't have that. And so, I mean, it's interesting because.

[Matthew Continetti]

What makes Denzel Washington so compelling on film is the nuance, the subtlety, Right. The way he delivers lines and unexpectedly reserved, thoughtful, quirky ways that give this sort of complete natural effect. And if what this calls for is the opposite, I could imagine.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah. Well, I mean, so, you know the movie that he won his first Oscar for, Glory, right, where he plays this escaped slave who fights for the Massachusetts 54th, the Black Battalion. The great scene in that won him the Oscar is the scene in which he gets whipped for his insubordination and does not make a sound. And it's all his face, and it's tears streaming down his face and his tightened jaw and all of that. But it's, again, all about. It's what. What he doesn't do. And Othello is the. Othello is mood made flesh. You know, he's proud, he's vain. He's vain, glorious. He's arrogant. And then he starts going mad with jealousy. And the madness is right there on the surface and is not subtle, you know, and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. Anyway, it's always worth seeing Shakespeare. I mean, there. It's not worth seeing. Really bad. I saw one five or six years ago, saw a production which John Lithgow played King Lear, Shakespeare in the park in New York. And Lithgow is a wonderful actor. And he was terrible, terrible, terrible as Lear. He was just. It's so sad because, again, Lear is not a part for him because Lear is a mad scene, right? Lear is literally crazy from the moment he hit stage to the moment, you know, and then the question is, is he senile? Is he just proud or. And he makes all these terrible decisions, and Lithgow is just too sensible. Comes across as too sensible a person to be King Lear. So it can be really bad to see bad Shakespeare. Don't. Don't get me wrong, but this production is worth seeing in that it moves well, it's fast. It's intelligently conceived as a stage, as in stage pictures and stuff like that. And with the brilliant casting of these subsidiary parts, most interestingly to me, Cassio, who is the. Who is the character that Iago picks to be the object of Othello's jealousy. Desdemona's friend Cassio, who Iago pours the poison in his ear that she's actually in love with Cassio. And it was interesting to me because the actor who played him, whose name is Matthew Burnap, I had just seen three days ago in Snow White. He is the sort of the prince in Snow White, in which he is spectacularly bland. And I saw him play King Arthur in a production of Camelot a couple of years ago in which he was spectacularly bland. And he had won a Tony a couple years ago for a play I hadn't seen, which struck me as being bizarre since he was so bland and he was really wonderful in this. So it's weird because, as I say, the supporting players are fantastic. So, you know, what about. It's like Rosenkrantz and Guilden Stern are dead. Maybe the. This production with those should have been about the supporting cast and not about the not about the two principles, but. So if you want to go see Denzel Washington on stage at the age of 69 looking fantastic and Jake Gyllenhaal looking like he did in Jarhead, spend a lot of money, you can go see it. And it's not. Not a waste of your time, but it is as expensive as Arabia.

[Christine Rosen]

This might be the first lukewarm Commentary recommends we've had. The non recommend. The don't even know what they're called.

[Abe Greenwald]

I have another commentary.

[John Podhoretz]

Commentary recommends. Yeah, today is opening day. Watch a baseball game. That's my recommendation. Watch a baseball. You can watch it for the price of a TV set or a price of a ticket. Just watch a baseball game today.

[Abe Greenwald]

All right. Do you think that the Mets have a shot this year? That's my question.

[John Podhoretz]

I think they have a shot at the playoffs, but, yeah, I don't think anyone can predict what happens in the playoffs ever.

[Abe Greenwald]

Thank you for that.

[John Podhoretz]

Another pearl of wisdom, really.

[Abe Greenwald]

You're really putting yourself out.

[John Podhoretz]

Another pearl of witness. That's my lesson of baseball fandom.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, there's a great line.

[John Podhoretz]

Everything's off with the playoffs.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, here's. Here's an actual. Commentary recommends the 1982 Paul Mazerski film Tempo number third. Wait. Tempest, which is based on the Tempest. Okay, Contemporary version of the Tempest, in which John Cassavetes plays the magician Prospero, essentially as an architect who goes to a Greek island. And anyway, it's a wonderful, crazy, funny, hilarious movie. And there is a conversation between John Cassavetes and his father John, going through. He's going through this midlife crisis, and he's like, dad, what on earth am I going to do? And his father says in a great line, life is like baseball. He says, it's a long season, which has always stuck in my head. And it's the defense for Matt's refusal to make any predictions about the ultimate, ultimate disposition of the Mets. Okay, so we've gone long. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. For Matt, Christine, and Abe, I'm John Pod Horitz. Keep the candle bur.