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A
Hey, it's John. I want to talk to you about Shopify. A lot of people talk to me about starting podcasts. This podcast is 10 years old. It's in a different place from a lot of podcasts because we're obviously part of a nonprofit institution and it's not a way that we are seeking to earn our livelihoods. But a lot of people look at this and say this is something I can really do to create a business and run the business and do it in a really comfortable, practical and serious way. Gotta wear a lot of different hats when you start your own business. Can be very intimidating. But one of the things that I know from a lot of people is that if your to do list is growing and growing and growing and that list starts to overrun your life, you need a tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything that can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands. Just getting started. You get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style. You can accelerate your content creation because it's packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. You get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into Kaching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com commentary go to shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary. Hope for the Expect the words Some pre champagne some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going Hope for the best expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Monday, September 8, 2025. I am John Pothorz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe. Hi John Washington. Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi Matt.
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B
Hi John.
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A
And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.
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C
Hi John.
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A
So much going on. Terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Final, final, final offer by really? The United States accepted by Israel for a full return of all hostages in exchange for thousands of Palestinian political prisoners released by Israel and an end to the offensive that Israel has started to conduct in Gaza City to take out Hamas. Meanwhile, massive Russian strike on civilian targets in Ukraine that has led or led President Trump yesterday, before he went off to the US Open to say he's about ready to act on sanctions. Our friends at the Institute for the Study of War explained that the drones that are being created by Russia that Ukraine's, by the way, are having some significant success in shooting down, which should be noted. I mean, that they sent 800 and something drones and, you know, 90% of them were actually shot down by the Ukrainians. These drones would not be possible without Chinese equipment, technology and parts. And so then there's a question of whether or not sanctioning Russia alone will be sufficient until the day whether, whether, just as we are talking about saying we are, you know, going out India for giving money to Russia for its oil so that it's supplying Russia with economic strength to continue the war, whether or not we need to do some act against China to get them to stop creating this pipeline that is keeping the war going. So this is the two big war fronts. And then in the United States we have this savage murder of this young woman on a train in Charlotte, the image of which is like already seared permanently in my brain. Just the freeze frame of the moment before he stabbed her and the very peculiar response by, I would say, these sort of elite mainstream politicians and media to this kind of unprecedented crime, given how it was captured on, on video and the idea somehow that it's good to suppress it because I guess, and I'll just say it flatly, because the, the murderer is black and the victim is white. And the mayor of Charlotte doesn't want people to be really focused on the fact that this happened in her city. So we begin there with Charlotte. I don't know. We begin with. This is just.
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D
Can I start with the Charlotte story, please?
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A
Go start with Charlotte.
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C
Yeah.
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D
I find it fascinating because for some reason I figured, you know, after the election and after the complete exposure of the drop in public trust of mainstream media, that there would be fewer of these stories that become sensations completely off of the mainstream front page. And that's what this has become. This was in right wing social media spaces, local news covered it. If you look, if you look up the story, you'll find, you know, a billion local reports on it. But it's one of those things that social media users on the right saw got outraged over the lack of broader coverage and they built it and built it. And built it. More people sort of piled on, said, where is the error? This should be the number one story in the country, which may or may not be the case. But saying things like that, demanding to see the full footage, which I think don't forget the victim's family has a say in whether or when that should be released. But this is one of those phenomena that completely bubbled up outside of the mainstream front pages and couldn't be kept down, couldn't be sort of brushed away. It became a huge story anyway.
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B
Right.
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C
And it was a, it sort of reminded me of a story here in D.C. a few years back because she was, she came from Ukraine, she came to the US Fleeing a war zone and then was killed here on, on a train in, towards the end of August. And we had a similar thing where we had an Afghan vet who came to the US and he was an Uber driver and he was murdered in the, in here in D.C. a few years ago. It was horrifying story. Again, someone fleeing a very dangerous part of the world, coming to the United States, expecting safety and freedom and then being slaughtered. And I think one of the things that was the reason perhaps that some of these mainstream outlets didn't want this story to get more attention is that it kind of checks all the boxes about what certainly what the Trump administration. But what anyone who wants a more tough on crime, red state approach to this. This guy is a multiple felon. He shouldn't probably have been out on the street. And whether or not he has mental illness is not the issue. He had been, he obviously had, had assault charges and felonious, I think, thefts and all kinds of, all kinds of problems. He had a long rap sheet. This is exactly the kind of crime that in these blue cities everyone wants to ignore and the wealthy elite can ignore because they don't live in the dangerous parts of town. They don't take light rail because they have their own cars. And so this, I think that's where, why this story resonated so much on the right and one and was either actively or perhaps subconsciously suppressed by people on the other side of the aisle. And it also raises this question of the Daniel Penney case, which of course is similar except for the differences in race and the way it was handled by the media.
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A
In case that people need to remember, Daniel Penney was the veteran who was on a New York City subway and subdued a schizophrenic who was threatening people on the subway car and held them in a chokehold and the guy died. Penny was charged with manslaughter, I believe, and was. Was acquitted finally, but should never have been charged. It was a, was, it was an outrage that Alvin bragged that Manhattan DA charged him. But that was very, very much a sort of. Because he was white. And the, and the, and the, and the unfortunate, the unfortunate schizophrenic was black.
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B
But isn't the question if someone like Daniel Penney had been on this bus, maybe this young woman would still be alive?
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A
Well, that's, that is the.
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B
I think mental illness is an issue here. My understanding is that the murderer had been ordered for a psychiatric evaluation, that one of his multiple legal hearings, and of course, he did not attend it, and the state had no means of making sure he did. And so he's one of the many raving lunatics who, who roam our city streets and who take public transportation. I also think it's a connection to the New York mayoral race. What's one of Zoran Mamdani's major issues? Free buses. And the buses are just going to become places for these type of indigent, criminal, kind of suspicious characters who have long rap sheets to inhabit and to randomly act out. So I think New Yorkers should pay particular attention to this as well. And then this, the final piece of context here, this happened, this will happen earlier this week, but the story really took flight over the weekend when Trump is in the midst of his ongoing war of words with Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker over whether the National Guard should go to Chicago. And I think this incident in Charlotte illustrates how many Americans feel about crime. All they hear from the liberal media and the Democratic Party is, crime is going down. Crime is going down. Data show. Data show date. This word data has this almost magical effect on the minds of New York Times readers and NPR listeners. It's, oh, well, the data show, then you open up your eyes and you see something like this happen on a bus to an innocent young refugee. And of course, the common sense response is we need to do everything we can to make sure incidents like this don't happen.
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A
Can I make two points in relation to that? So there was a lot of polling over the weekend, essentially sort of the monthly polling that people are now doing showing unfavorable responses by the public to Trump's deployment of the National Guard saying Chicago, the poll, the polling is, by the way, overall, not, not bad for him. He's at 43, 44, 45%. It's not, you know, he's not like in the 30s or anything like that. It's not great, but it's not bad. It's sort of in. It's the sort of Trump range. But there is this polling that says that. That his unfavorably disposed toward him deploying the National Guard or sort of federalizing crime. Federalizing weirdly sounds like to a lot of U.S. conservatives, like, federalism is the wrong word because that makes it sound like he's sending it to the states. But nationalizing or, you know, sort of making the federal government a player in local crime issues. But, you know, what always matters in polls on attitudes is intensity questions. So you ask somebody like, do you think he should employ the national excuse? Then the National Guard, Chicago people out, nah, I shouldn't do that. But do the people who want him to deploy the National Guard to Chicago or who support it, is this like an issue that they vote on that they actually. That they really, really, really care about, that they're passionate about, whereas other people are like, yeah, I shouldn't do that? It. It. That's the intensity of the issue, and how people respond to the issue is not measured by yes or no questions on polls. So I think on the one hand, Democrats should take heart from these polls suggesting that Trump hasn't won the American people over to his side, that there needs to be a kind of national focus on crime as a major American issue. And at the same time, if he is binding his coalition tight, as, you know, as a drum, and getting 3 or 4% of other people to come aboard who say, this is something that I like, I can't go to sleep at night looking at these pictures or hearing these things. We don't know how this is playing out. But you can't just accept the idea that majorities of Americans or a super majority of Americans don't like what he's doing on crime, I don't believe that is a right way to look at this matter. I want to bring up one other cultural point. There was a lot of outrage expressed yesterday, and I think understandably so, because it's so vulgar and so inappropriate to participate in caricature. If what you're saying is like, this is an incredibly serious issue that we need to focus on as a major American cause. Trump tweeting out this sort of, this meme of, of. Of him as Robert Duvall in Apocalypse now. And it says, chai, Apocalypse Now. And I love the smell of deportations in the morning, which is what Captain Kilgore says in Apocalypse now about napalm in the. In the movie and the outrage and how can Trump do this? And it's so terrible and all of that. Now, as I say, I don't really think this is good, a good way to make this a. To focus on a serious issue. But I happen to know. I happen to know that if you're saying, oh, my God, this is terrible, that he's like, likening this to Apocalypse now or whatever. Spike Lee has a television series three seasons long about crime in Chicago called Chiraq. And I don't remember anybody complaining that Spike Lee was caricaturing Chicago's crime problem by producing a TV show called Chiraq.
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C
Okay? But the other thing that Trump had in that meme was they're going to find out why it's the Department of War. And I think the difference between Spike Lee and the President is that the president actually can command troops and send troops places.
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A
And I think that's why I totally agree with you. And that's why I don't want to say that I am in any way, shape or form supportive of Trump issuing that meme. But I am not going to get lectures from people who say that it is totally okay for Hollywood to put out whatever the hell it wants to put out in terms of how to talk about American social crime and other problems and then get all outraged and horrified that somebody else uses the same kind of theme material in a direction that they don't like.
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B
I think the interesting thing about Chicago is the underlying issue is not crime. If it were just about crime, I think we'd be having a very different conversation. The underlying issue in Chicago is illegal immigration. And when you hear Pritzker and Johnson talk in these inflammatory terms about what the President is proposing, calling him a dictator, saying it's an invasion.
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C
Right?
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B
So both sides are using ridiculous rhetoric to describe this. What's at stake in this debate, what they're most concerned about isn't Trump addressing the murders on the south side. They've never been concerned about the murders on the south side. What they're concerned about is ICE agents going into immigrant areas in Chicago and enforcing immigration law by finding and deporting illegal immigrants. This is what's here. And this, this is what Trump is talking about in that, I agree, poorly conceived meme that. The amazing thing to me is the Blue City mayors, who are so up in arms over Trump's program and leading the resistance against him, are defending a structure of immigration that's connected to economics of their cities, it's connected to the politics of their cities, and it's all based on breaking the law. Now, it's not, you know, it's a misdemeanor to be here illegally, but it's all based on illegality. And so I think Trump, again, whether it's being tough on crime like we see in Charlotte, or saying that immigration has gone too far, illegal immigration in particular has gone too far, it's another issue where he's going to rally his base. And I think some people who remember the past four years and why Trump was voted into office in the first place.
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C
And it does pick up on a theme that he, we, we discussed actually in the run up to the last election about some of the, the fact that illegal immigration has brought crime with it. I mean, there was, there were these high profile cases of illegal immigrants murdering, raping people and again, the downplaying of that on one side of the aisle. I do, I'm curious because I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he said, you know, it would be interesting for Trump if he's going to really push this with Chicago, to also send some federal law enforcement to red states where there are red state governors, but in blue cities, I mean, so there's what, like Memphis, there's a couple cities that are pretty blue within red states and just sort of see if that's welcomed by the governor or not or. But if it's going to be this kind of crackdown on crime, I think it would help to distinguish some of it. What people fear, John, what you're saying about crime and what Matt was alluding to earlier is the randomness. It's this fear of being a victim. When you're just going about your daily life, you're not in the wrong part of the town, you're not buying drugs, you're not doing any of the things that might put you at a higher risk. Violent crime, being a victim of violent crime. It's the fact that a Capitol Hill intern, college student was shot and killed not that late at night in a very busy part of town here in D.C. recently near the White House. They did actually catch two of the three people. They were underage. But they're trying them as adults. That's a good thing. More of that would be a good thing. But it's that sense of fear of being a random victim of crime that I think is, is something that I would like to see Trump speak to more than just putting out. You know, sophomore means.
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B
I think they are talking about sending National Guard to New Orleans. You know, the Republican governor there is very MAGA and supports the idea. And if Marsha Blackburn is elected governor of Tennessee in 2026, I think you could expect some National Guard in Memphis as well.
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B
Or at the Annunciation School.
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A
The Annunciation School, Right, So even, even those crimes, right? Like, like mass shooting crimes, all it is, you don't know where it's coming from. It's by definition random because it's the result of the behavior of a person who is not, does not have his fact, his or her faculties and, and, and, and some voice in their head triggers them and they go and they do something horrible. And it's like the difference, it's like a kind of the difference between making a weird pop cultural analogy between like being a character in a thriller and being a character in a jump scare horror movie. If you're a character in a thriller, if you're a character in a Hitchcock, you can be menaced. You can be, you know, being followed by somebody and you're worried and they're going to take you and throw you in a car and then they're going to like try to get information out of you that the, the photograph that we've seen, the image from the video of the young woman in Charlotte just before the stabbing is an image out of a, out of, out of a jump scare horror movie. It is what you would show in a trailer to try to get people to go, I gotta see that, that, that looks really scary happening in real life. And I don't think people want to live their lives terrified of random randomness. On the one hand, it's obviously safer than a world in which people burglarize and you have soft on crime judges who let them out in the way that you let them out when they were let out in the 70s and 80s. But the feeling isn't much different. You know, it's like there is no defense. In a weird way. That's, that's the point. Right? Well, what is the defense against the attack?
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B
That, that have more law enforcement, right.
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A
And you can have more involuntary windows.
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B
Policing theory, which is broken windows is very important here.
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D
I just want to add, because this guy did not pay to get on the light rail. He was, he was not even supposed to be on the train. So you start there.
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A
So to explain that broken windows theory says you start with a fair jumper because if you, somebody, a person who is a fair jumper is likely to have committed other crimes for which that person has, is either on parole or is in the justice system in, in the middle of a, of a arraignment or, you know, or case or something like that. And therefore you can grab them as they're committing another crime. So that is like the key to broken windows policing is the idea that non criminals don't, don't engage in criminal activity. So if somebody engages, it's not the first time he's done. If you jump a term style, chances are you've done other stuff that's worse. And it's much easier to nab somebody committing a crime like that and then saying, okay, what else? By the way, we all go through this.
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B
You also raised over by a cop the standards for behavior.
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A
Right, But I'm just saying, like everybody has, if you get pulled over by a cop for speeding or for, you know, like having a busted tail light or something, they take your license, they go back to the cop car and they try to make sure that you're not, you know, wanted for murder. You know, the 10 minutes that you wait until they come back with your life, your license. That's not, they're not, you know, that's not intrusive or unjust or unfair. That's just like criminal, you know, sort of criminology 10101, you get you someone's in, just make sure they're not wanted for something else.
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B
I think this is very important considering what's happening in Washington D.C. so Trump's intervention. Washington, D.C. is nearing its 30 day mark in terms of the federal takeover, so to speak, of the metro police and the introduction of the National Guard. And in that time crime has plummeted. Now, was crime declining before Trump's intervention? Yes, but the drop since has been so dramatic that even Mayor Bowser, who had waxed and waned on her attitude toward Trump at the outset of the experiment, is now behind him and saying she wants this to continue. And this mystifies liberals. The New York Times had a front page article saying, more police on the streets, but there's nothing for them to do because crime is falling. And that's one of those more mornings when I read that headline, that Butterfieldism. It's the. Yeah, he was talking about the prisons. He was talking about the prisons. He would also write that more incarcerated as crime falls. In this case, it was more police on the streets, but they have nothing to do because crime falls. I wanted to shake my paper and rip it up into a thousand pieces when I read that headline. It's precisely because there are more people on the street that crime is falling and that criminals are deterred. And this gets to, I think, a crucial misunderstanding liberals have about Crime fighting. In the famous Broken Windows article that James Q. Wilson wrote with George Kelling for the Atlantic in 1982, they begin by saying, look, we have to draw a distinction between policing and law enforcement. Policing is when you have the cops on the beat, they're in the streets, they're making the rounds. Everyone knows that they're there and they feel safe. And because you feel safe and because the criminals are worried that if they do something wrong, they might get caught, there's less crime. Law enforcement, Kelling and Wilson said, occurs after the crime. It's the cleanup crew. Someone is murdered, there's a car burglary, then the law shows up to investigate. And they say in the famous Atlantic piece, law enforcement is not a way to reduce crime the way you want to get crime on the outset. And that's through policing, and that's through the broken windows strategy. And Broken windows is being implemented in D.C. i hear all these complaints about the National Guard presence. Oh, the National Guard, they're just. They're just cleaning up the parks. They're just making the streets nicer. They're not really enforcing the law. One, they can't really enforce the law because of federal statutes. Two, cleaning the parks, washing the streets, beautifying the city, taking down the homeless encampments. That will reduce crime because it imposes a cost on social disorder. And so I just. I think that the liberals should look at what's happening in D.C. it's the test case here, and it can be implemented in other cities. All it takes is an act of will, and it's an act of will that these blue mayors are. Cannot even conceive of.
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C
Well, and I would like, if it was interesting to. You're right. To have Mayor Bowser say she wants to see a continuation of this. I would love to see some of those eyes on the street, law enforcement on the street. Go to Ward 7 and 8 in the district, which is the high. Those are the highest crime areas in the city. Entrenched drug gangs, all kinds of stuff going on there. That also the highest violent crime rates in the city. And residents of those wards, when interviewed in the past, you know, few weeks, have said, yeah, we'd like more law enforcement presence on our street. And, you know, they say, we want it to be fair. Well trained cops, etc. Etc. That's what everyone would say. But they are also aware that the problem in their ward, their two wards in particular, could use more help. And so if. I'm wondering if that might be something she could do if she's asking for continued federal presence, National Guard presence.
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B
I would think that the purpose of the federal resources in the federal agents would be to free up the local agents to be redeployed, ideally, like those wards you mentioned. And we know that the Metro Police have had a really hard time. There's an ongoing scandal about whether the books have been cooked about crime statistics. There are huge problems with personnel, the lack of actual bodies, actual police. And then of course, with all police departments, you have the issue of is the police officer on the beat or is he sitting at a desk? And this, this step is intermediary. This step of introducing the federal presence. It should, it should be a way to allow the local police department to redeploy in order to effect the most dangerous wars. But I'd say that this crime drop is all. Is across the, is across the district. So it includes these, these wards that, where you don't see the federal presence like you do in the, in the center of the city.
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A
I think there's a really morally appalling message that is being sent by blue state mayors, many of whom are themselves African American. And it is that we do not want to prosecute crimes because we don't like the fact that a disproportionate number of the people that we will have to prosecute are black. The fact that the people that they prey on are wildly, disproportionately black is either a secondary issue or, or there is this weird stew in racialist attitudes that says everybody in a black family knows somebody who's had to go to jail or they're afraid to be on, on the streets with cops because the cops are going to come after them. And that law enforcement is inherently racist as a result. And black people don't get a fair shake even if they're being theoretically protected from the consequences of crime. And this is just morally abhorrent to me. It's so like it's, it, it seems to be axiomatic for somebody like Mamdani or, or, or anybody or any of these more progressive. They don't, they themselves don't have to be black. Obviously Mamdani's not black. What's.
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B
Michelle, though he does identify as African American.
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A
Yes, he does. He does. If he needs to try to apply.
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C
Can I add to your, can I add to your outrage and say it's also not true that that's how. That's a kind of elite left leaning politician's view of the people they are claiming to protect having. Look, I've Lived in the district for more than 30 years now. I've been on many, many juries, both criminal and civil. I love my jury service. Everybody should do their jury service. It's really helpful. And with D.C. residents of all backgrounds and races and you know, the ones who are most meticulous about in both insisting that law enforcement presence could have prevented a terrible crime or is more needed, the people who are supposedly being protected by this idea that crime shouldn't be prosecuted because of their race. The folks who I have been on juries with, particularly from the more crime ridden parts of the city over the years, are the ones who are, who will say, you know what? It would be great if there was a cop stationed outside of the Metro to see who's coming in and out, who's jumping. I mean, they say this sort of stuff all the time. And so it is a condescension to those people's actual experience to say that they wouldn't want to see the prosecuting happen of these criminals.
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D
Can I say, you know, something else that we talk about? Various factors that contributed to, to the ramp up of Blue City crime in the past few years. Covid, the social justice chaos and things like that. I think the legalization of marijuana, huge deal. It had the opposite effect of beautifying the cities and raising the standards for behavior. It turned sort of city life into a kind of free for all. It sort of loosened things up to the point where no one really cares about anything. Look, look, you could just, you could just walk around getting stoned now and no one cares. Now I get technically if you make something no longer a crime, you have less of that crime. But I think the social effect and the investment of city dwellers as a result really plummeted.
- [40:08]
A
There's a, I mean that, that is one element. Obviously the, the, the most horrifying policy here in New York State, which was the, which was the ending of bail, meant that, that, that, that in an effort to make sure that it was, it wasn't fair for middle class and upper middle class people to get themselves out of jail on bail because they could afford to. And so therefore the way to, while poor people couldn't afford bail. And so they would, they would stay in. So we end bail, we, we, we eliminate bail. And so everybody gets out.
- [40:50]
B
And the jails were emptied during COVID Yeah, I mean this kind of, you know. Yeah, Dark Knight Rises moment.
- [40:57]
A
We've had this very strange, there's a very strange relationship between crime in the 70s and 80s. There was a kind of in cities and other places, there was a kind of learned helplessness. It was as though, what can you do? This was some kind of. It was like the cold, like there. There was no cure that anybody could discern for the problem of crime. And so you just had to live with it. And politicians talked about other things because they didn't know what on earth to talk about. I'll give you an example of this. Nobody knows who the police. Nobody knew who the police commissioner of New York City was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, something like that, once the crime drop started. The police commissioner is the second most famous person in New York City, even now. Even who the police commissioner was became. Became a major political issue, is a political issue now with the appointment of my old intern, Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, who seems to be the only official that anybody in New York City likes. But because it was sort of like, well, one cop is the same as another. The police chief is the same as a regular cop. They don't know how to stop crime. We don't know how to stop crime. Well, it turned out there was a met, there were, there were methodologies you could apply to do it. If your purpose was to lower the amount of crime. It wasn't to make a more just society. It wasn't to equalize the effects of law on the rich and the poor. It was to reduce crime so that everybody could be freer and leave their houses at night and go to the park, go to a concert without, you know, being threatened by muggers and that, that kind of thing. And it happened. And as is always the dynamic, a lot of people didn't like it. There was a lot of protesting against it, and yet you could not argue with the results. But 30 years in, people forget that it wasn't ever like this, that there was a point when, you know, I remember New York in the 70s and 80s, but I'm in my 60s and half the population in New York is under 40. And they have no idea what it's like to live in a different kind of city. And this constant need to relearn the old lessons. And I think Democrats and Democrats are going to be forced to learn these lessons again, that people are going to hold them accountable for the things in their life that they're actually supposed to manage. They're supposed to, like, keep the streets clean and make them safer.
- [43:53]
B
I mean, I think sadly, it's because no one has held them accountable that Trump is able to do experiments like Washington, D.C. and to threaten to do the same in Chicago. Or in Los Angeles or other blue cities. We've had this experience really since the de Blasio election in New York. That was 2013. When you have blue mayors who, instead of believing in policing and public safety, believe in racial equity and therefore want to essentially stop enforcing the law in order to pursue this abstract ideal, they really have not been held accountable. There was a slight moment of accountability with Eric Adams kind of bizarre election in 2021 that. That didn't quite work out as planned. He did make the great selection of Tish. He's made some progress in some areas, but he's such an unusual person. He hasn't been able to sustain it or even really publicize it well, but in other cities, look at Chicago. You know, you had years of Lori Lightfoot elected around the same time as de Blasio, and who did they replace her with? Not George Vallis, who is the more moderate. They replaced her with Brandon Johnson, who's one of the least popular politicians in America. So I worry that the situation in the cities has become so dire that it's almost it's impossible to hold, hold some of these elites to account. And that is what makes an external force necessary.
- [45:49]
E
I'm Oliver Darcy.
- [45:50]
F
And I'm John Passantino.
- [45:51]
E
We have spent years covering the inner workings of the news media, tech, politics, Hollywood and power. Now through our nightly newsletter, status.
- [46:00]
F
And we're bringing that same reporting and sharp analysis to a new podcast, Power Lines.
- [46:05]
E
Every Friday, we're breaking down the biggest stories shaping the industry, explaining why they matter and saying the things most people are thinking but too timid to say out loud.
- [46:14]
F
No spin, no fluff, just sharp analysis that isn't afraid to call it like it is. We also pull back the curtain via our exclusive reporting to take you behind the scenes.
- [46:23]
E
My understanding having reported this is that the Pentagon protested to CNN and tried to effectively exile the CNN producer. And when the moment calls for it, it we've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up.
- [46:40]
F
Oh, my God. That's Power Lines presented by Status. Follow Power Lines and listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.
- [46:54]
G
I'm Mark Alper and 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 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.
- [47:41]
A
Although, you know, politics is dynamic, one of the issues here, as we can see in Mamdani's success in New York City, is that Republicans in New York City because, you know, Trump got 17% of the vote because Democrats have a 6 to 1 registration advantage. All of that Republicans after Bloomberg, who wasn't really a Republican. Giuliani wasn't much of a Republican either, despite whom he became later. But, you know, they basically said, what's the point? What's the point of running a serious camp? What's the point of me, a person like spending, trying to raise $20 million to run win the Republican nomination for mayor and run as a Republican on the line? We'll just let our old friend Curtis Lewa do what he did last time. He'll be the stand in, he'll get 300,000 votes and it'll all be over. Imagine if somebody had said, you know what? You never know what's going to happen. I am going to run Nicole Milliotakis, the congressman from Staten Island. I'm going to run for mayor and I'm going to go to Wall street and I'm going to say, you know, the city is going down the tubes. Give me 25, let me raise $25 million. I'll be on TV, I'll do ads, I'll make myself famous and we'll see what happens. Because if there were a viable Republican running for mayor right now in New York, who polled in the respectively and all of that, Mamdani might lose. He's likely not going to lose, not only because there's a split in with three candidates running against him, but because the major political party in the United States that isn't the Democratic Party does not have a serious contender for one of the most important offices.
- [49:40]
B
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have a serious contender because it doesn't have a presence in the city because there are so few Republicans in this city.
- [49:49]
A
But some of this is the cart before the horse problem or however you want to Put it like, this is a very, this is a very liberal city, but it is not a particularly Democratic city. And so, in fact, and since the 19, since the mid-1970s, with the exception of the Dinkins and de Blasio mayoralties, the most rightward candidate in the race will tend to win. I mean, that has been the case. That was Koch, that was Giuliani. That was, that was, that was Adams.
- [50:32]
B
There was more of a middle and working class in New York City.
- [50:36]
A
Right. But I don't want to make this about New York. I'm just saying, in general, Republicans have ceded the cities on the grounds that. What's the point? Like, why are we even bothering? We have other fish to fry. And I think that's a huge missed political opportunity.
- [50:52]
B
What I'm saying is there's no. They're ceding the cities because they're not there anymore.
- [50:57]
A
Anymore.
- [50:57]
B
They've been driven out the Republic. Republicans are working class people, okay? Typically with two children and they're married.
- [51:05]
A
Okay, here's my point. New York City people don't know this. The largest ethnic group in New York City is Hispanic, where. Now, Hispanic is a, is a really bad term. It describes people who come from Spanish speaking backgrounds and they're from 10 different places. And thinking that they represent an individual thing is wrong. However, what is the Republican success story of the last nine years? It is this astonishing growth in the vote at the federal level for Trump among people who are called Hispanic. Is that fertile ground in a city like New York? It may not be fertile ground in a city like Chicago where the Latino population is not that large, but New York, Louisiana, other places, Dallas, Houston, I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying, like growing political parties are growing like this. I'm not saying it's just a missed opportunity. I mean, there is real material to be used for seedlings that can grow into real branches. I don't care whether it's a Republican or not. To be honest, if there were like a left wing Democrat who was really good at.
- [52:26]
B
Well, let me, let me correct myself earlier because I said I couldn't find an example of the electorate holding politicians accountable in these cities, but it occurred to me that in San Francisco, something like that has happened and a more reasonable mayor has been elected and the DA was, and there's been improvement in San Francisco as a result. So I guess. So you have two models. You have the Trump model, Washington, D.C. where the law grants Trump extraordinary authority to intervene. But you also have the San Francisco model and these electorates in these cities. They have to choose.
- [53:02]
A
Look, politics, politics is never static. California was the rock ribbed Republican state of all states, you know, until 1996 when everything began to flip like some of that's the defense industry does. So it's all 17 other different things. You know, the Solid south was Democratic and now it's not like every things don't remain but static.
- [53:26]
C
There is something in the last, I would say 10 to 15 years that has happened with regard to prosecutors and the attitude of prosecutor, criminal prosecutors in all of these cities. And we know there has been this concerted left wing effort to get progressive prosecutors into positions of power. And so what the right should do is similarly what it did with the Federalist Society with judges. Get a project going that changes that dynamic, put people in who actually want to prosecute crime in high crime cities. That is a huge problem here in D.C. it's a problem in lots of other cities. It's the reason that what Boudin was, was recalled. I mean he literally was not prosecuted executing crimes, which was his job. So that, that is a project though. That's a broader intellectual project that will take time, but it's possible and it's something that should be on the radar screen of anyone who wants to fund some, you know, pro law and order initiative.
- [54:20]
A
Listen, Kelling's the Killing Wilson article, which was sort of like a breakthrough moment, was published in, in 82. The theories that they helped promulgate and then sort of trickle down to think tanks in other places like the Manhattan Institute to sort of create the conditions for Giuliani wasn't in place to start affecting those changes for another 1112 years. This is not something that can happen in a day. But people are sick and tired of living like this in cities and they should be. And crime is something that they're frightened about. And maybe it's a deinstitutionalization issue, not a, not a lawn. Again, it shouldn't be a law enforcement issue if what we're talking about here is schizophrenia. Law enforcement has now become the effective enforcers of the protecting people against people who's. Who have this horrible disease that makes them violent. They shouldn't have to do that. You know, a policeman shouldn't have to be the social, you know, shouldn't have to be the person who, who is the interface between the schizophrenic and the society. That's not, that's not right. But that's what's effectively happened. Let's move on to other issues with Trump how seriously do you guys take Trump saying he's had it with Russia? Because he basically said that yesterday on his way to the US Open. Well, he's had it. He's going, he's, he's, he's angry.
- [56:03]
B
He's angry and unhappy with Putin, which he's been saying now for a few months. And the news yesterday on the way to the US Open was his statement that, yes, he's prepared to move on to the sanctioning Russia. It was a very brief statement. We don't know what that means. He also said he'd be talking to the Europeans and Zelensky and Putin in the next couple of days. So it leaves me very skeptical that anything will happen anytime soon. And I would just say that the silver lining, if there is any, is that the war is going to go on regardless. And Ukraine is not lost to war. And Ukraine now is producing more of its own weaponry. It's having various weapons ways to get around the political obstacles to sending weapons from the United States to Ukraine. And despite Russia's slow progress in some areas of operation, the main threat, it seems to me, to Ukraine comes from these endless aerial attacks. And there, I think, I don't see how anyone could object to sending air defenses to the, to, to Ukraine or building more air defenses to go to, to go there. And so, as David Ignatius wrote in the Washington Post over the weekend, both sides, Ukraine and Russia, are basically settling in for continued war of attrition with neither side winning, but neither side losing.
- [58:04]
A
But, you know, Ukraine wins by not losing in this sense, which is that Ukraine losing means that Ukraine loses massive amounts of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine losing means that Russia has a free hand to move almost at will after whatever happens, happens, and there's some kind of settlement or ceasefire or something like that. And then they'll just eat up. They'll just eat, they'll take little bites and bits and pieces and all of that and basically destroy Ukraine over the next decade. Ukraine, Russia can only win one way, which is to defeat Ukraine. Ukraine, though the cost is insuperably high, wins by not being swallowed up by Russia. And in a funny way, they have the upper hand in that sense because they've proven to be so innovative and fleet footed. It turned out that they could not succeed in a conventional effort to seize Russian territory to create the conditions under which they would trade Russian territory that they had taken for Ukrainian territory that Russia had taken. That was last year's effort in the summer offensive and it didn't work. But they're still, you know, they're still alive and kicking and fighting. And, you know, Trump called the war ridiculous yesterday. He said, the first lady and I, you know, just want to see an end to this ridiculous war. And that is a preposterous word to use about this war. This war is deadly serious. It's about one country swallowing up and enslaving another country. And that's the least ridiculous thing that I can imagine. We can decide as a nation that we don't want to be particularly involved in helping them, which is, I think, a mistake and bad in 10,000 ways. But what the Ukrainians are doing is exist. You know, it's, It's. They are. They are saving their sovereignty and ridiculous. It aids.
- [60:16]
B
You know, I just want to make one point, which is, you know, four presidents have been unable to stop Vladimir Putin from warring against his neighbors and the West. George W. Bush's second term, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump, too. There's one president who did somehow deter Putin, and that was Trump 1. Yes. Same man, very different approaches to foreign policy in his two terms. And I would just hope that we find that Trump won. President. Where is he?
- [60:59]
A
He's somewhere there.
- [61:01]
B
Someone who is a little more forceful and who understands the stakes and who is willing to really push back against Putin or allow people in his administration who want to push back against Putin to do so. Because otherwise we're. We are where we've been really, for the past 20 years, which is a West that can't figure out how to stop Vladimir Putin from warring against civilization.
- [61:35]
D
But the difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2 here is that with the war already on, Trump 1 or Trump 2 is so reticent about tying the US to kinetic action of any sort abroad.
- [61:56]
B
Don't tell that to the cartels or.
- [61:59]
A
The mullahs, except where Israel is concerned, which is where. Where we can. Where we can bring this to an end. So this remains a nearly miraculous fact of the world that we live in today as the entire world and every democratic country in the world and leading countries in Europe and elsewhere. Turn on Israel. Talk about embargoing arms to Israel. Are going to support the creation of a Palestinian state at. At the UN Next week. And on and on and on. Trump continues. The Trump policy now is we've made a final offer to Hamas. Let all the prisoners go. Let all the hostages go. Israel will surrender Palestinian prisoners from jails and will. Will end its advance on Gaza City. And if, if you say no and we're not negotiating, I mean, basically what they've said is we're not negotiating. This is it. This is our final deal. This is the best and final offer. And otherwise, we are totally all in with Israel, you know, crushing Hamas through the military engagement in Gaza City that will involve largely the destruction of Gaza City over the course of a very difficult couple of months of military action. How this has happened, I don't really understand. And. But it's there and he's all in. And in fact, it's almost as though he's annoyed that the Israelis aren't being tougher. So on the one hand, you know, he thinks the war in Ukraine is ridiculous, and on the other hand, he's all in with Israel on Hamas and that, you know, it's a wonderment they're.
- [64:10]
B
Trying to get the hostages out. This is proposal for the release of all the hostages. It shows that Trump's priority is to get the hostages out, because if, in exchange, they're promising the release of Palestinian criminals and terrorists and a stoppage in the operation against Gaza City, which we learned at the end of last week, is more advanced than many people knew. I don't see this working. I don't see Hamas accepting this proposal for the following reason. To release all the hostages ends Hamas's leverage. The only leverage Hamas has is the fact that it's maintaining the living hostages. And so for them to give them up means that at the end of whatever interim period follows the deal for negotiations, the IDF could go in and eliminate Hamas from Gaza City, because Hamas needs to be eliminated in order for there to be some sort of post Hamas governing structure. What's interesting is that in this latest deal, the Americans got the Israelis to kind of not talk about whether the pa, the Palestinian Authority, might actually be the governing structure in a post Hamas Gaza Strip. And that's, that's notable. But I feel like this is going to be a offer that hangs out there as the IDF continues its slow march through Gaza City and we won't end up seeing the hostages released.
- [65:56]
A
Oh, I don't. I agree with you, but I think the point here is that Trump has said, okay, here's what you get. Send all the hostages home, and we have a relatively conventional deal for you. All the hostages go home, there's a ceasefire, you're going to get prisoners just.
- [66:15]
B
Like, and, you know, it does show that Hamas is the obstacle.
- [66:20]
A
Right.
- [66:21]
B
By putting this forward.
- [66:22]
A
Right. And, and, and if not, then all bets are off. And, and, and as I say, just, it means that Trump's attitude on this is very, very different. From his attitude on almost every other matter that he is in, you know, he is engaged in. Matt, you have a recommendation?
- [66:44]
B
I do, John, thank you. We talked about a co authored article, Broken Windows. I want to talk about a co authored book. Let me just pull it out here. For those of you watching on YouTube, it is this massive tome, the Golden Thread History. Did she recommend it?
- [67:08]
A
Okay, that's fine.
- [67:10]
B
That's fine. I have an alternative. I have an alternative, but I have to say, Christine, you have, you have good taste because it is, it is a sight to behold. It's just a beautiful work on its own. Okay, my, my alternative, my backup selection is actually also co authored. But it turns out that Maurice Sendak, the celebrated children's author, designed the scenery and costumes for an opera of Hansel and Gretel many, many years ago. And some of the illustrations that Maurice Sendak, the author of where the Wild Things Are, among other classics, made for this opera, part of his design had just been uncovered. And so in a very inspired choice of prose, marriage of prose and art, Stephen King has written a children's adaptation of Hansel and Gretel paired with the Maury Sendak illustrations. And this has just been recently released. And if you are, as our audience knows, like me, a connoisseur of children's books and of picture books, you're going to have to run out or order this book right away. Hansel and Gretel, words by Stephen King with illustrations by Maurice Sendak.
- [68:36]
A
And just to reiterate that what just happened here is that Christine had on Friday recommended the Golden Thread, the first of two volumes in A New History of Western Civilization by Alan Wilzo and James Hankins. And so we now have double recommendations for, for that. The first, the first volume, I think, is largely by Hankins. And the second volume, which is not out yet, will be by Alan Guelzo, the great Civil War and Lincoln historian and Lincoln scholar. All right, so that's us for today. We'll be back tomorrow. For Matt, Christine and Abe, I'm John. Papa, it's Keep the Candle bur.