Loading summary
Transcript224 lines
- [00:00]
John Podhoretz
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.
- [02:25]
Oliver Darcy
Pre champagne, some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going.
- [02:32]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Monday, October 27, 2025. I am John Pot Horitz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.
- [02:50]
Christine Rosen
Hi John.
- [02:52]
John Podhoretz
Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.
- [02:54]
Abe Greenwald
Hi John.
- [02:55]
John Podhoretz
And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Cottonetti. Hi Matt.
- [02:59]
Oliver Darcy
Hi John. You know, I know there's a lot going on at home and abroad, but I just want to take this time to mention four little words that lit up my life over the weekend when I heard them. Those four little words are I am not done. And that is our former vice President Kamala Harris in an interview to the BBC, where she is leaving the door open for another presidential campaign in 2028, a campaign that by its very nature will have to last longer than the 107 days where she was thrust unwillingly into the maw of Trump and MAGA because of Joe Biden and his betrayal. But those four words, I am not done, have to bring a smile to every conservative's face because they know that as long as Kamala Harris is running for president, Republicans have a chance to win.
- [04:09]
Abe Greenwald
See, I took it that she maybe was threatening us in the way that Hillary Clinton has done with more memoirs. Just it's just going to be a constant stream for the next decade of.
- [04:17]
John Podhoretz
More Kamala Memoir Hillary does have a new memoir out, as does Karine Jean Pierre, Biden's 17th press spokesman, who explores the ways in which she was mistreated as press secretary, in part the questions that were raised about why it was that whenever there was anything substantive going on, even though she was nominally the White House press secretary, they would kick her off the podium for John Kirby. Another interesting story relating to John Kirby, which we'll get to in a minute, but that her version of explaining that she actually had the chops and not John Kirby was to cite rappers who really thought she was great. And I Look, I'm almost 65 years old. I didn't know who any of them were that she mentioned. But I do believe that their saliency as critics and observers of the briefing process, I think really elevates the Karine Jean Pierre memoir to important levels, like Memoir of Rip Taylor, the Memoir of Gallagher, the memoir.
- [05:34]
Oliver Darcy
You've heard all those celebrity memoirs.
- [05:37]
John Podhoretz
I mean, I don't believe you've worked. I have not. I have not yet. But, you know, there, there is a whole class of memoir where people in the memoir tell stories about people who said nice things about them that are have the exact opposite effect of that which they're supposed to represent. Meanwhile, John Kirby was named the director of the Institute of Politics at my alma mater, the University of Chicago, an institute started by David Axelrod, or whose first director was David Axelrod. And there is a campus revolt against John Kirby's naming, not because he represented an administration that promised to help Ukraine and then withheld the help from Ukraine that might have resolved the war, not because he had to speak in very blunt and untrue terms about how Israel was going too far in its prosecution of the war against Hamas simply because he spoke about the American use of the military in a way that was not condemnatory. So fun, fun times. As the Democratic party and the left are now in this gavat with each other as represented by the mayoral race in New York City.
- [07:09]
Christine Rosen
Can I just say. But before we get to the mayoral race, that's the same liberal left, liberal establishment that Kamala would face were she to go back into any sort of race, aside from her being a terrible candidate all over again, it would. She would be jumping into a far less friendly environment than this, than the one that she had already faced, to.
- [07:33]
John Podhoretz
Be fair to her. Okay, but I just want to make.
- [07:35]
Oliver Darcy
One say she's still pretty popular among Democrats. I don't think the Democrat partisans have the same view of her as most people.
- [07:47]
John Podhoretz
I think we need to find out whether the Democratic Party is bifurcating as the Republican party did between 2012 and 2016. In other words, she representing relatively popular identity politics of 2024. The fact that she didn't win and the fact aid so she's a loser, and then the fact that she wasn't a vanguard figure did not advance more radical policies in her 107 days could lead people in 2027 and 2028 to express a kind of contempt for her. Yeah, that they're not expressing now, but that I can see them saying she's just another one of those tired Washington establishment in a post mom Donnie party.
- [08:42]
Abe Greenwald
She did advance a radical. I mean, she was totally on board with all the DEI stuff. She was completely on board with a fairly open border. She was the trans.
- [08:50]
John Podhoretz
I'm not saying she's not radical.
- [08:52]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [08:53]
Oliver Darcy
She never talked. They're never talked about it.
- [08:55]
Abe Greenwald
Right. She avoided discussion.
- [08:57]
Oliver Darcy
She's the perfect Democratic establishment candidate that is wokey but only gives little hints of that. And she represents kind of identity politics in action as, as a woman, as African American, as Indian American. She is kind of pro capital. She says I'm pro capitalism. But what she means is she's really for like a heavily regulated and distribut capitalism. But she's not going to bother the oligarchs if they come on in her side. And then very interestingly, as she told a friend of mine late in the campaign, one thing she didn't want to give up was American global leadership. So kind of a sense of America, but how she understands American global leadership is America kind of, you know, lecturing everybody and then using the military for social work. And kind of political correctness purposes. But that's, that's in her imagination. That's what she, that's what she's thinking. I think she's very much like, you know, more prominent, more famous Abigail Spanberger. And if Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat candidate in Virginia, wins the governor's race next week, that shows that, you know, this gets to why Mamdani. And what we're going to talk about is important. Democrat Party is not all consumed in by the Socialist Party. There's still going to be a huge, hey, open race over what future it pursues in 2020.
- [10:40]
John Podhoretz
Donald Trump only got 45% of the primary vote in 2016. Now, the rules of the Republican Party meant that he won running away. And those are not the rules of the Democratic Party, which are, which are much more complex about how delegates are assigned. The Republican Party was, you know, if you won, you got most of the state's delegates. That's not the way it works in the Democratic Party necessarily. So maybe in the Democratic Party, the difference in the rules means that the most extreme candidates or the most, the candidates that drive the most passion won't necessarily have the power that Trump had in 2016 when he kind of leapfrogged everybody, but didn't leapfrog them enough to win going away in the way in which we said during 2016, he does not command a majority of the Republican Party's voters. And that had not been. And in 2012, that was also true of Romney. And Romney didn't win. And the whole question was whether he could consolidate the Republican vote, which he didn't really do, by the way. And so 2016 was an interesting result. So if we go to what's going on in the Democratic Party, it turns out that a week from Tuesday, a week from tomorrow is going to be a very pregnant day in every sense of the term for the demo. Whom are they midwifing for the future?
- [12:27]
Oliver Darcy
Right.
- [12:28]
John Podhoretz
We've got Spamberger, who represents the Democratic middle in Virginia, should win running against somebody who is unpopular but has gotten into trouble because of difficulties below her on the ticket.
- [12:46]
Oliver Darcy
She's totally uninteresting and unexciting.
- [12:48]
John Podhoretz
Right. Well, and that. Right.
- [12:50]
Oliver Darcy
She's a complete blank slate. That's what I mean, that she's very representative of the Democratic establishment.
- [12:55]
John Podhoretz
And the same thing is true of Mikey Sherrill, the New Jersey gubernatorial candidate for the Democrats. Who is, who is. Doesn't sound colorless. On paper, she sounds pretty interesting. She's a fighter pilot and she, I I mean, she has like three or four different.
- [13:13]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah, she's involved in a cheating scandal when she was at the Naval Academy. She's involved in insider trading. She's much more interesting than Abigail Spanberger.
- [13:21]
John Podhoretz
Okay, but that's all the negatives. But you know, she's like flying around in a helicopter talking about her service and she has four kids and she's. Yeah, and you know, she's like just. She's a mom, but she's also a politician and. But is extremely colorless.
- [13:35]
Abe Greenwald
But they're. You know what, though. But that is a tactic. I mean, they're both kind of running as the anti. Karen and I think that the fact that Spamberger on a debate stage literally just went silent when asked a difficult political question, that a lot of voters have strong opinions about the trans stuff in particular. That's their. That seems to be what they are now being taught to do. Just don't engage that. As Matt said, don't engage those issues where our party's on the wrong side of most of the American voter. And that I don't think is effective. I mean, look, Winsome Sears was just absolutely dogging her on the stage.
- [14:08]
John Podhoretz
Winsome Sears is the Republican candidate.
- [14:11]
Abe Greenwald
But that moment for me struck me as like, oh, they don't want to be seen as the scolding, liberal white lady that we see all over TikTok.
- [14:18]
John Podhoretz
Well, okay, so that's true there. But in New Jersey, in the debate between Mikey Sherrill and Jack Cittarelli, Mikey Sherrill turns around and accuses Cittarelli, who's a businessman and owns. One of the things he owns is a medical publishing company of having. Public of. Of having publications published by the medical publishing company. Saying things about pharmaceuticals that according to her, mean that Cittarelli has killed thousands of people because peer reviewed studies were published in a publication that he owned. That according to some people. I mean, I don't even know. I don't want to dig into the details. Right. But he killed thousands of people because he owns a publication that published a study that da da da, da da. Now this is interesting about this in New Jersey is they went with this attack on Big Pharma. This isn't weird play. New Jersey's single biggest employer is Big Pharma. Two or three of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in America are located in New Jersey and employ literally tens of thousands of people. You would not think that a mainstream candidate for governor of New Jersey would want to attack the state's biggest employer. And that shows the degree to which the Overton window on what it means to be a moderate Democrat has moved. Because even though Big Pharma is unpopular, even though it therefore, you know, that's a sort of good headline and stuff like that, you look ahead, she's got to work with these companies. They're going to want things from her. She's going to want things from them. They bundle money, raise money for, you know, if it's a healthy relationship between them, they'll bundle money for Democratic candidates next year and in 2026 and all of that. And she decided because she is in trouble to go with this very populist attack on state's largest employer. So where that tells you where the Democratic Party is if they know if they did day they did focus groups and said that this was a, this was a good avenue for them to go down because they needed to somehow get off the back foot. She has become kind of the subject of the race. Not him. She was trying to make him Cittarelli. You know, he's 100% MAGA and Trump loves him and so you should vote for me. Doesn't seem to have quite taken off. The polls are very tight. If the polls are tight, that probably means that he's ahead because it's a Democratic state. He shouldn't be doing as well as he is. He Only lost by three points in 2021 to Phil Murphy. So I the car, the anti Karen stuff only goes so far. The question is what is it that will push the buttons of sufficient numbers of Democrats to get them to the poll so that they can achieve their natural advantage in a state in which they are the majority? You know, I don't know what the registration numbers are, but they're significant Democratic registration advantage in New Jersey and all things being equal, Spamberger should be walking away with this race which she might be like this might be topic life. And in fact she'll win by 10 because Sears is a problematic candidate. But we don't know and we don't know what any of this. In other words, like if Spamberger wins by going weird populist, anti the biggest employer in her state. What message do you take away from that if you're running for office in 2026 or 2028? The Golbats are off.
- [18:26]
Oliver Darcy
I take. Well, I take the message that the pharma is unpopular and a boogeyman and everyone will beat up on it. I mean, I think the point is that Mamdani is still not an outlier but represents, you know, a growing portion of the Democratic Party, Whereas outside of a mayoral election, the Democrats are more likely represented by these kind of colorless good bios. You know, they're resume gods, as David. But on paper, yeah, would have called them. But then you meet them and they're so petrified of taking a position against 70% of the public, like Christine says, that they end up not saying anything. And that is, to me, much more representative of where the Democratic Party party is.
- [19:25]
John Podhoretz
I mean, but that's why Mamdani. Well, that's why. Okay.
- [19:29]
Oliver Darcy
I just want to add some historical context.
- [19:31]
John Podhoretz
Okay.
- [19:31]
Oliver Darcy
Okay. Because yesterday in New York City, Mamdani held a very large rally. And who was he rallying with? Well, he was rallying with the New York congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and then he was rallying with Bernie Sanders. And so this is a statement. You know, earlier this year, you will recall, Sanders and Ocasio Cortez were touring the country in their anti oligarchy tour. They were getting big crowds in blue cities. Probably the same sort of people who went to the no Kings rally the other weekend or so. They're not a turnout people. There's. There's a. There's a definite audience for that. But in 2016, when Bernie Sanders ran for president and gave Hillary Clinton a scare, he ended up with 43% of the Democratic primary vote. Four years later, slightly different context, because the Democratic primary was interrupted by Covid and Democratic elites wanted to shorten the primary so that Biden Sanders did not get more of the vote. He ended up with 26% of the vote in the Democratic primary in 2020 against Biden's 52%. And then there are a bunch of other candidates, had little smatterings, funnily enough. Pete Buttigieg, who's always, you know, portrayed as the great Democratic hero, he got 3% of the vote in the Democratic primary.
- [21:05]
John Podhoretz
Important to note, again, as a harbinger of what might be. Even though Biden won. And then, you know, and then 2024 ended up being the Biden Harris game. Biden lost the first four primaries and. And the cavalry had to come in.
- [21:26]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah.
- [21:26]
John Podhoretz
And save him in the South Carolina. Yeah. Right. And basically he had to be, like, rescued from what? I don't know what it would have meant had. Had he not been rescued. I mean, they restructured everything. So in 2020, he had to be saved. Right. So in 2024.
- [21:46]
Oliver Darcy
2024, he saved him.
- [21:48]
John Podhoretz
Right, right.
- [21:49]
Oliver Darcy
Driving RFK out of the party and then that.
- [21:53]
John Podhoretz
And then rejoin after the primary. Schedule. Yeah. But also, you know, moving, you know, moving states who had been first in the nation down and all of that. And we'll see what happens when they're restored. The point here is that in 2020, the party was already giving signals that it had a revolution. It was exhausted and disgusted by the regular Washington political machine and that they wanted outsiders and that Bernie was the first blow. And that you had. You had one decent showing for a bit from one Washington politician in 2020, Amy Klobuchar. You had Biden coming in as the Washington politician, but you had all this action, all of the debates, everything that happened in 2019 was all aimed at pushing the candidates to the left. They all fell for it. Biden ran in the middle and relative middle, like, no, I won't expropriate all of capitalist activity in the United States. That's like, wow, he's a neoconservative. That's like the breeding, the public interest all of a sudden, and then he ends up winning. But, like, so there. But the question is, where was the juice in the party? And the candidates clearly thought the juice was in moving and moving and moving to the left.
- [23:24]
Abe Greenwald
But this is why the interesting thing about that rally last night was Kathy Hochul. The reception to Kathy Hochul, who finally endorsed mom Donnie. Although she kind of looked like someone had some blackmail material on her that made her do it, she did not look happy to be making that.
- [23:38]
John Podhoretz
She endorsed him a month ago.
- [23:40]
Abe Greenwald
The crowd disliked her, and he basically walked her off stage because it was starting to get a little bit restive out there in terms of her reception by the crowd. She's a traditional, more traditional establishment type.
- [23:52]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah. And I think it's also related to why the shutdown is continuing. I've made this point before on the podcast, but I think we see it happening over the weekend as well, is that Democrats are refusing to open the government by voting for a clean spending resolution because they're afraid of their base. One of the. I think it was Chris Murphy over the weekend.
- [24:20]
John Podhoretz
Senator from Connecticut.
- [24:21]
Oliver Darcy
Senator from Connecticut said something like, well, you know what's just terrible about the shutdown, because it's giving Donald Trump more power. Donald Trump loves the shutdown, he says, because it gives him all this power. And I saw this quote, I just wanted to suggest to the senator as politely as possible, you know, you could do something about it. Well, if. If you want to deny Donald Trump the power to act with discretionary authority during the shutdown, there's something Democrats could do to stop him.
- [24:56]
John Podhoretz
Hey everybody, John here. I'm here to talk to you about Brooklyn Betting. And look, the best thing I can tell you about Brooklyn Betting is that they decided they wanted to try advertising with us. They offered us a mattress. We took it, my wife and I for one of our kids and so impressed were we by the mattress. By the way, one of my three kids slept on the mattress and found the mattress so comfortable that we went out and got two more for our other two kids. I don't know what better endorsement I can give you about the high end mattress experience you get from Brooklyn Bedding without the sky high price tag. Super comfortable, looks great, doesn't cost a fortune, and high quality materials to last a lifetime. It's like my kids got a first class upgrade without a first class price. They handcraft every mattress in an Arizona factory. No middleman, no gimmicks, just top tier quality, honest pricing and real American craftsmanship for a better night's sleep. So go to BrooklynBedding.com and use my promo code commentary at checkout to get 30% off site wide. This offer is not available anywhere else. That's BrooklynBedding.com and promo code COMMENTARY for 30% off site wide. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. That's BrooklynBetting.com promo code commentary. Okay guys, I'm excited because it is fall and it is time for me to talk again about my favorite clothing, Quince sweaters. Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll actually want to wear on repeat. Like 100% Mongolian cashmere from just 60 bucks. Classic fit denim and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. You know, I wear a lot of Quint sweaters. If you watch us on YouTube, you're going to see Quint sweaters all winter. But I got my eye on their suede trucker jacket. It's perfect for layering and just looks really casual. But put together by partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. So layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quints.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary but you know, here's the.
- [27:40]
Christine Rosen
Thing about the resume superstars or whatever you said resume resume gods. Resume gods. They are all paralyzed. Kamala was paralyzed. And all the establishment Democrats are paralyzed. And the only alternative that seems to be on offer among Democrats are the socialist, anti Israel, radicals. They're the ones who aren't paralyzed. You're either that or you're too afraid to make a move.
- [28:17]
John Podhoretz
That's what makes you a resume God like, think about this in terms of businesses and places you've worked and all of that, who bobs up over time. It's not the really innovative thinker in an organization. It's not like the dynamic leader. It's the person who offends the least number of people on the board and in leadership who ends up finally grabbing the big brass. Their caution is what made them got them where they got. They filed their, they filed their rough edges down. They became the least offensive person in the question of where the rising, you know, who is going to survive as things rise. And that's very much true in the Democratic Party's political structure now, or has been for 20 years. Has been.
- [29:12]
Christine Rosen
But we, but we've been saying for a while on this podcast that the really aren't parties that function as parties anymore. So if you came up in a party that functioned like a workplace does in that, in terms of that dynamic, that's one thing. I don't know what that gets you from here on forward.
- [29:30]
John Podhoretz
Well, it's interesting though, because a state like New Jersey or a state like Virginia, where nationally parties don't exist, and, and even at the state level, you know, a person can blow a party out. That's what happened with Mamdani in some ways, although he wasn't really, you know, there was no party candidate for the mayoralty of New York City because the incumbent mayor was out. And then you have the disgraced governor with a lot of money who comes in, and then you have four or five other candidates. You know, he was just as you look back, it's like he was just as plausible a candidate as anybody. He was a state assemblyman. Like who? How do you know that the New York City comptroller would be a better candidate than the state Assembly? You don't know what the state assemblyman does. You don't know what the New York City comptroller does. What, what does it matter? But in these cases, the Spamberger and Mikey Sheryl cases, these are people who were sort of picked by the party in some fashion or other.
- [30:30]
Oliver Darcy
Take the main primary that we've been discussing because there you have again an already an incumbent governor Janet Mills, entering the Democratic primary to challenge Susan Collins next year and she enters the race at the same time. Amazingly enough, a lot of opposition material is released about her main opponent, Graham Platner, the working man candidate. And yet the latest polls, after it's been revealed that Platner has a Nazi tattoo that he now claims he's going to get replaced with a different tattoo. Who knows what it will be? Maybe it'll be the Italian Fasces instead of the Nazi insignia he had on his chest.
- [31:16]
Christine Rosen
He's going to etch a sketch his flesh.
- [31:19]
John Podhoretz
Well, by the way, and also that.
- [31:20]
Abe Greenwald
He went to Hotchkiss. He's not a working class guy. He went to Hotchkiss. He's, you know, an elite.
- [31:27]
John Podhoretz
But by the way, just. He went to Hotchkiss and then was then no longer at Hotchkiss. By the way, he was at Hotchkiss and then he ended. He graduated from high school, from a public high school in Maine. So we don't know what the real Hotchkiss story is, but we should say that the first. There's another poll this weekend from SoCal Strategies in which Mills is now ahead of platner. Oh, it's 41, 36. I don't know who this pollster is.
- [32:01]
Oliver Darcy
So five point lead for Mills, the governor.
- [32:04]
John Podhoretz
Right. Whereas last week the University of New Hampshire had Platner leading Mills by 34 points, which looked. I don't know, I thought, you know, it's like if you wanted an outlier poll, the poll that has the sitting Governor losing by 34 points is probably when you want to be skeptical of.
- [32:23]
Abe Greenwald
But Bernie has stood behind him.
- [32:26]
Oliver Darcy
Is it going to be a close primary race?
- [32:29]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [32:29]
Oliver Darcy
Where the anti establishment Democrats who are more left leaning and much more anti Israel than the establishment Democrat candidates. Is it going to be a race? Are you going to have an establishment candidate toppled in a primary? It was hard, you know, again, it's hard to generalize from the New York City mayoral election, which everyone is doing because as we've noted, the unusual nature of that contest where. No, yeah, you mentioned the comptroller, but the comptroller was fighting for air from the current mayor Eric Adams and the former Governor Andrew Cuomo, just to get a leg up against the possibility of making it a race against Mamdani. So I think that we're not quite at the point where.
- [33:28]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [33:29]
Oliver Darcy
AOC is going to just waltz into the Democratic nomination in 2028. As many people in the media are.
- [33:35]
Abe Greenwald
You can't even handle a CNN town hall with Kaitlan Collins without having Babysitting by Bernie Sanders. I mean, she's not, she is not yet.
- [33:42]
John Podhoretz
She's got, she's got two years to get better. And she look on her own. She's a very. On her own without being in a contest. She's formidable. Like she has, she has communication skills. She's a, she's a huge celebrity. She's a fundraising juggernaut. She has all kinds of qualities that if she can improve on some of the things that she's bad at, she would be a formidable person. If the Democratic Party's constitution has moved further to the left and that Trump has pushed them further to the left, that's why I want to do. I think the Mamdani race is more representative than Matt is suggesting. Not because I think New York City is a representative political body for the United States, but because all kinds of things have happened and happened this week that suggest. You mentioned you meant like Graham Platner is running in Maine as a tough oyster. No oyster Fisher, blah, blah, blah, you know, nonsense candidate. His juice. The thing that had him as an accelerant in this was attacking aipac, the Israel lobby. It wasn't I'm an oysterman and you're not an oysterman. It was, you know, these Jews and these Zionists can't run everything in America and we're here to stop them. Now, you would not think that the state of Maine would be awash in passionate anti Zionist sentiment so powerful that it would take this guy and turn him into a major celebrity in, in five minutes that against whom you needed to drop major oppo to halt his progress. But that was the key. And Mamdani this week gave the game away, which is, which makes this race now, I'm sorry to say, because I don't want this to be true. A referendum on how anti Zionist the Democratic Party really wants to be or how the electorate in a liberal place really wants to be because he was running and claiming he was running on affordability. That's why he was running. He was running. He's going to make free buses. He's going to build affordable housing. He's going to have city grocery stores. Affordability, affordability, affordability. How is the race ending with him talking about Islamophobia, with him talking about how the, you know, there were, there were, you know, sort of the, the essentially the Jews have gotten privilege in the city as victims and is. And, and Muslims are not getting enough Covid, as we would say, not Covid, but like aren't getting enough honor as real victims. And then told this bizarre story about how 911 was so awful because his aunt was so uncomfortable by the Islamophobia in New York City after 911 that she was afraid to go on the subway in her burqa.
- [37:01]
Abe Greenwald
Hijab.
- [37:02]
John Podhoretz
What?
- [37:02]
Abe Greenwald
Her hijab? Yeah.
- [37:04]
John Podhoretz
Burqa.
- [37:05]
Abe Greenwald
Did he say burka?
- [37:06]
John Podhoretz
He said burqa.
- [37:07]
Abe Greenwald
He said burqa.
- [37:08]
John Podhoretz
Do me a favor, look it up because.
- [37:11]
Abe Greenwald
Wow.
- [37:11]
John Podhoretz
I'm pretty sure he said burqa. First of all, I've ridden the New York subways. I was riding then, I've ridden now I ride on the New York City subways. I've maybe three times in my life seen anyone in a burqa on a New York City subway. So that's why I'm asking if you would check because.
- [37:28]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and there's this question of whether the aunt actually a lived in New York during that time and ever actually does wear the traditional head covering of whatever sort should be turned into McDonald's.
- [37:40]
John Podhoretz
Oh, he said a job. Okay, so I'm really being on other people. Twitter were saying, right, okay, that's my mistake. So let's.
- [37:46]
Abe Greenwald
Does she even exist? I mean, did this actually happen? Is my question. I feel like it might be a Kamala working at McDonald's situation if he's not careful because they're going to start asking questions.
- [37:55]
John Podhoretz
Good. That's. So that makes it even more pointed if he made up a story about how Islamophobia was the nightmare of New York City after 9 11, such that Muslims cowered in fear in showing their public wearing the outer garments that would demonstrate, that would show the world that they were Muslim. There are two things going on there. First of all, it's a lie. New York City was unbelievably pacific after 9 11. There were no attacks on Muslims. There were no hate crimes. I believe almost no hate crimes in New York city in the two months after 9 11. Like you had to live here to experience this kind of. We were in a daze. We were kind of. Everybody was shocked and in grief and people were being incredibly nice to each other. And every politician from George W. Bush down to Mayor Giuliani and the candidates running for mayor in, in, in New York because the election was extended. Remember 911 was actually the primary day in New York had to. The primary had to be canceled and pushed a month. So Freddie Ferrer who was running as the Republican and Mike as the Democrat and, and, and Michael Bloomberg. It's Michael, not Freddie Ferrer was, it was Mark Green anyway. And, and Michael Bloomberg were all Talking about how we have to. We love. Islam is a religion of peace and da, da, da, da. It wasn't true. The story that he told was a cock and bull story and a lie. But the fact that he wanted to tell it is very pointed because he's going to end the campaign as the Muslim candidate who says that the victim of 911 was a Muslim woman who couldn't ride on the subway. And he's not in Dearborn, Michigan. He is in. He is literally in ground zero. Right, where 2700 people were murdered by a terrorist attack, where there are a.
- [39:56]
Oliver Darcy
Lot more Muslim voters than there were in 2001.
- [39:59]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's also true.
- [40:00]
Oliver Darcy
He is. He is revealing himself over the weekend to what I've been suspecting actually since I've returned from India for what he is. He is a sectarian politician. Mamdani is a sectarian Muslim politician who is using a socialist agenda to appeal to the barista proletariat, but whose real constituency are the Muslims of New York City. And there are quite a few of them, and many of them are from South Asia, India and Pakistan. And so here he is.
- [40:34]
Christine Rosen
I agree.
- [40:35]
Oliver Darcy
He is descended from. From Indian parents. Right. Of course, via Uganda. He. He is a Muslim, as he is reiterating over and over again, his main issue, other than the economic stuff that he. That he throws at the crowd is Israel. It came up again and again in the rally yesterday. It's anti Israel, so it's identification with the Ummah. This is who he is, and this is why it's so frightening if he wins. Right.
- [41:08]
Christine Rosen
Can I just say something? Because I totally agree and I have to say my thinking has changed on it. I had initially thought he was first and foremost actually a hardcore socialist who happened to be Muslim and have this sectarian constituency. I no longer feel that way. I think he made it clear where his priorities actually are. And I also thought he saw this speech as his own sort of twisted version of Barack Obama's race speech. @ the end of his race, Obama sold out his grandmother. Mamdani may have told the tall tale about his aunt. And in his own twisted way, Mamdani ended with saying he wants all New Yorkers to have an opportunity. It was his. His version of healing.
- [42:13]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [42:14]
Christine Rosen
You know, dark.
- [42:16]
John Podhoretz
Okay, but see, this is my. Here, here's. Here's where there is a progression in this race from him winning the primary unexpectedly with an unexpectedly strong showing, like the ranked choice voting, there was a general feeling that Cuomo would come very close in the first ballot. Of the ranked choice vote and that as Canada, as the other candidates dropped off to the side, he would start to lap Mamdani and then win on the seventh eraser, the ninth ballot, the ninth ranked ballot. And Mamdani won by either nine or 11 points on the first ballot. In Cuomo Reala, there was no mathematical way for this to happen. During the primaries. It was the oppo that was surfacing. How anti Israel bom Donnie was. He was not running as an anti Israel candidate. He was running as the affordability candidate. He was running as a socialist and didn't want to talk about Israel. Then he wins the primary and he's got to get from the primary to the election and decides rather than moving to the center, which is what you would sort of expect in a classic someone wins on the left and then says, I want to be mayor of all New Yorkers. And then he, you know, he like moderates his language and all of that. He's like, I'm not doing that. I got here this way and I'm gonna be me. And who he is, as Matt says, is an anti Semite sectarian Muslim. And where his communism intersects with the sectarian Islam is not that I want to directly accuse him of a complete like lineage with like 1990s New York Radicals and Islam. But you know, the famous radical lawyer Lynn Stewart, who was the lawyer of the Weathermen, the lawyer of every radical cause in the United States, ends up in the 1990s becoming a conspirator with her clients who were the perpetrators of the 1st World Trade center bombing, is passing messages as a lawyer, gets indicted, convicted and sent to jail for being a co conspirator in the World Trade center bombing and afterwards. And she was just a Stalinist, like she was a Stalinist. But of course, her general passion was she hated America so much that the people to go to, if you wanted to have America destroyed, was the blind sheik. You know, the communists didn't. Didn't have enough juice anymore. So that's where she went.
- [45:30]
Oliver Darcy
I want just make two observations. The first is, in some ways I don't like to give Mamdani credit at all, but in some ways he has moderated. What he's moderated on are the socialist aspects. He's kind of distanced himself from some of the democratic socialist platform items. And then he has also suggested that he will reappoint Jessica Tisch to be the NYPD commissioner. And that is Commissioner Tisch has been pretty effective, most people think, in suppressing crime in New York City. So there he's made some moves, but it's on the ethnic politics, the sectarian politics, where he's doubled down most clearly in the past week, going to the mosque with the man who's mentioned in the indictment, that unindicted coconspirator in the.
- [46:23]
John Podhoretz
1993 World Trade Center.
- [46:25]
Oliver Darcy
Andy McCarthy says that we shouldn't call him that, but nonetheless, he's in. The man is in. The imam is in the indictment from the World Trade center bombing. And he appeared there and then this speech, which is really remarkable. I mean, the. The optics of the speech, the text of the speech, this is what he's pushing. But he's pushing it because he wants to turn out the immigrant and Muslim vote in Queens in particular to extremely high levels. That's going to be his base of support and what that means for the future of New York, I think. You know, we've seen a little bit of a preview in London, for example, where it means that the Jewish community of New York, despite what Mamdani is saying, is going to be put in a very precarious position because of the political backing of their new mayor. But it's also, again, why I am leery of extrapolating what is happening in New York to the country at large.
- [47:23]
John Podhoretz
You may be leery of extrapolating, but you're not the issue. We're in Plato's cave, right?
- [47:28]
Oliver Darcy
Right.
- [47:28]
John Podhoretz
The question is, what are the shadows outside the cave? Tell Democratic candidates, well after November, whatever, November 2nd.
- [47:38]
Oliver Darcy
Here's another item that we haven't mentioned, and that goes to your point, which is Ed Markey is the incumbent Democratic senator in Massachusetts. Okay. He's. He's 80 plus. Right. And his. His seat is up next year. So he's been challenged by Congressman Seth Moulton. Now, Seth Moulton, Iraq war veteran, another resume God. Someone who has spent his political career trying to represent the sensible central left. What is his first act as a candidate that gains notice? His return of all funds he's received from AIPAC and his vow not to accept any AIPAC money. This is the candidate of the responsible, quote, unquote, center left. And that's where you're right, John.
- [48:37]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [48:38]
Oliver Darcy
That's where Mamdani is, I think a leading indicator of the anti Israel turn. And AIPAC is an American organization. These are American Jews that you're refusing to accept money from.
- [48:54]
John Podhoretz
Also apac. APAC doesn't give money. That's the M. APAC is a bundler, essentially. So what he is doing is rejecting money from Jews From American Jews who want.
- [49:09]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah.
- [49:09]
John Podhoretz
And they're Christian allies. Right. So, yeah, so that's a leading indicator. But the fact that he didn't go from post from post to post on affordability is very telling. Mom. Donnie. Now, he may have felt that he had no choice because he wasn't running away with the race. We think he's running away with the race and it's very smart. Like he's, if he's a successful politician, you don't run like you're running away with the race. Right. That's stupid. Like you want to run like you're going to lose and keep the energy up. But the, the amount of material that has been surfaced over the last month from weird things that people, you know, like a podcast he did in 2020 where he said, I'm only in politics because I want to destroy. Fundamentally, I'm only in politics because I want to destroy Israel. And various other things are be maybe beginning to bite a little bit. And if he win, let's say he wins, he'll win somewhere, you know, he might win at most by 15 points. And Eric Adams and Bill de Blasio before him got more than 70% of the vote in the last three elections. The Democrats got more than 70% of the vote in each of the elections. They're low turnout elections, incredibly low turnout elections. Give you an example of this. 1993, when Rudy Giuliani ran against David Dinkins, and in 1989 when David Dinkins ran against Rudy Giuliani, turnout in New York City 1.9 million with a smaller population than New York City has now, but half, half a million smaller than New York city has now. 2013, 2017, 2021 turnout, 1.1 million in each of those races. So again, I'm not doing math. Corner. They went down from 1.8 million to 1.1 million because of the two days of early voting. It is very clear that we're probably heading toward 1.8 to 2 million voters. Don't know what that means yet. The Democratic primary was a huge turnout. A million people, like again, 100,000 fewer than than turned out in the general elections in the three prior races. But of course, Mamdani only won that by 8. He didn't win it by 40.
- [51:45]
Abe Greenwald
And that's why he needs that 9%, the Muslim population. He needs that 9% for a showing, for a genuine showing.
- [51:52]
John Podhoretz
And New York's jews make up 11 to 12% of the city, down from 30 at the high water mark. So there are still more Jews than Muslims. And. And we have to see what is going to happen here. I. It is a very long shot that he loses. But I was watching this weekend, two days of early voting. 160,000 people voted in the first two days of early voting. That means that there could be as many as three quarters of a million early votes. And look, I'm in a neighborhood that voted for Cuomo. So, you know, I stipulate that. But Manhattan and Brooklyn were the two boroughs where the early vote was astronomical. And Manhattan is Cuomo territory, and Brooklyn was Mamdani territory. But a lot of Brooklyn isn't Mamdani territory. And the question is, did Cuomo voters or people who didn't like Bomdani, did a bunch of them stay home on election day? It was really hot. It was like, almost 100 degrees. Did old people not turn out in the primary to vote against Mamdani? Very possibly. The polling place that I was at, the early voters were like. I was. I felt like one of the younger people. And I'm in my. I'm in my 60s. That's what it looked like. Are they voting for Mamdani? I kind of doubt it. I don't know whether an early vote is a vote that could be cast on election day, but if you're turning out to early vote, that's a sign of enthusiasm or what's the, like, panic or something like that?
- [53:33]
Abe Greenwald
Enthusiasm or fear.
- [53:35]
John Podhoretz
Thank you. Intensity is the word that I was looking for.
- [53:37]
Oliver Darcy
Can I just make a plea? Here's my plea for the Democratic Party. I would like the Democratic stars to be persons without Marxist professors as their fathers. This is. I got Barack Obama and the Kenyan socialist father.
- [53:54]
John Podhoretz
I have Pete Buttigieg and the anthropologist, the radical anthropologist's mother, who deserves a biography.
- [54:01]
Oliver Darcy
You know, wasn't it Nixon? Nixon said in his farewell speech, no one will write a biography of my mother. They have, but they should write a biography of Obama's mother because she's a character.
- [54:11]
John Podhoretz
But any interesting life.
- [54:12]
Oliver Darcy
You have Obama's dad. You have Buttigieg's Marxist economist, Maltese professor. You have Harris, Kamala Harris dad, who's also a Marxist professor, though he seems very interesting. And I think he likes Kamala about as much as I do. So I'm giving him a little bit of an asterisk. And now you have Zoran, whose father, Mahmoud Mamdani. Of course, I've talked about my personal history with him in the past, but what I want to talk about today is his new book, Mamdani's new book. Is on his Uganda where he lived. And it is really extraordinary. I'm about to utter a phrase I never thought I would say. It is a. If not pro. An anti. Anti IDI Amin book. Never heard of Idiomine. The psychopathic bloodthirsty dictator of Uganda who welcomed.
- [55:17]
John Podhoretz
Who welcomed the plane with 103 Israeli. The Entebbe airport is important to the story. And he went to the right. He went to where they were being held at the airport and walked through very grandiosely welcoming everyone. Yeah, to Uganda.
- [55:38]
Oliver Darcy
So this is IDI Amin who of course was accused of cannibalism against his opponents. Who is vociferously anti Israel, who was a terror. He was literally a terror to the Ugandan people. Is represented in Mamdani's new book. Mamdani Pair's new book as mainly a product of colonialism. That was why IDI Amin surfaced. Was the colony the white colonialists when they left. And then IDI Amin is turned out by the Tanzanians. After ID Amin invaded Tanzania, the Tanzanian army came in, toppled him and he's replaced by Museveni. And Museveni is apparently bad, at least as bad, if not more bad for Uganda than IDI Amin according to Mahmud Mamdani. And who's behind Musevini? The Jews. Israel. This is. I just gave you in two minutes the entirety of this new book by Zoran Mamdani's father. And I just want you to think about for a second the milieu in which Zoran Mamdani was raised. If this. If this is what Mahmdani is saying about Israel and the Jews in public. Imagine what he spent Zoran Mamdani's youth saying in private.
- [57:04]
John Podhoretz
Okay, first of all I want to commend to people. I haven't had a chance to look this up. But just for the flavor of what you're talking about and idiomin for people who were. You weren't even alive and your knowledge base is pretty good. I was. And it's not just Entebbe. There is a brilliant documentary that IDI Amin called IDI Amin Dada Dada being his. I don't know what you would call it title or something by the director Barbet Schroeder who ended up making Reversal of Fortune and Barfly and a couple of other movies and was Jean Luc Godard's producer. And he made this documentary about IDI Amin came out around. Just after he had made it in 75. It came out around the time of Entebbe or a little after And IDI Amin is shown in this documentary explaining to Barbay Schroeder that he has telepathic abilities to control animals. And you see him at a zoo, like going and showing. And then like a lion turns his head and he says, you see, I made that lion turn. I. That is who I am. I may I control the animals of Uganda. This is how. This is how crazy he was. There's actually a Forest Whitaker one in Oscar for playing him in a movie called the Last King of Scotland. This is no joke.
- [58:28]
Oliver Darcy
Which he claimed to be.
- [58:29]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, that's right, exactly. That's why it's called the Last Game of Scotland. And it is. He was like a figure out of a fairy tale nightmare. And. And one of the reasons in the world that the. For a time the anti colonial rhetoric of the left started to fade away in. It was like one of the most powerful messages of the post World War II period was anti the colonial what? Look what they did. Look what the Europeans did in these. All these places. And America did terrible things, even though America was not precisely colonialist. And then there were all these leaders in Africa in particular who showed themselves to be psychopathic, genocidal, barbaric monsters. And then you started hearing a lot less about the positive aspects of post colonial politics because they started in the academy.
- [59:30]
Abe Greenwald
Except in the academy.
- [59:31]
John Podhoretz
Even in the academy for a time. For a time. I'm talking about 10 years. Maybe about 10 years. And then it all started flooding back and, and that you could write a book in 2024, 2025. Well, that provides an unbiased view of the positive and negative aspects of the misunderstood.
- [59:59]
Christine Rosen
We should also say in 2425, Uganda's still a nightmare. Zoran Mandani is very proud of it and he flies off for his photo ops and he says he doesn't support any country with. With a hierarchical system.
- [60:18]
John Podhoretz
If you.
- [60:19]
Christine Rosen
In Uganda, homosexuality is punished by life imprisonment. Imprisonment or death.
- [60:25]
Oliver Darcy
I'm Oliver Darcy.
- [60:26]
John Podhoretz
And I'm John Passantino.
- [60:28]
Oliver Darcy
We have spent years covering the inner workings of the news media, tech, politics, Hollywood and power. Now through our nightly newsletter status.
- [60:36]
John Podhoretz
And we're bringing that same reporting and sharp analysis to a new podcast, Power Lines.
- [60:42]
Oliver Darcy
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.
- [60:50]
John Podhoretz
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, exclusive reporting to take you behind the scenes.
- [61:00]
Oliver Darcy
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.
- [61:11]
John Podhoretz
We'Ve got some hot takes.
- [61:12]
Oliver Darcy
I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he.
- [61:14]
John Podhoretz
Kind of seems a little washed up. Oh, my God. That's Power Lines presented by Status. Follow Power Lines and listen on Apple sp, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app. 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. Well, I mean, so let's just to get to the, the, the point about this rally where Hochul, the governor got booed and Mamdani's game in as he is playing it, if he's playing a game and if he's not, as I say, trying to be as authentic as possible in his pursuit of this goal of being mayor. Hochul endorsed him a month ago and he did not endorse her. Bait and switched. She did it because she needed to get him to make sure that the Democratic Socialists of America wouldn't run a candidate against her and somehow knock her out in the primary and she did it and then he. Because she's a moron. And I mean that advisedly. I mean, I'm not saying that just to be insulting. I mean she is, I think if you look up the word moron in the dictionary, Kathy Hochul's picture appears in the dictionary. Moron fell for it. Didn't actually have the exchange of promises, explicit, where it's like I'm endorsing you and then you're going to say you endorse me and that's how this is going to go. And maybe you should go first, whatever it is. And he screwed her. And then three, four, she's there at the rally getting booed. So he's playing an interesting game. He still says he's a Democratic socialist. Andrew Cuomo playing shorthand as one of the most inarticulate and incompetent retail politicians ever kept saying in the debates, he's not a Democrat, he's a Democratic Socialist. Well, congratulations. Maybe you didn't see all the polling Andrew Cuomo that says that the word socialist is no longer a bad word for Democrats who are, who say, like I think around 50% of Democrats say they approve of socialism. So he's in the past, he's running in a, in a, in a democratic world that no longer quite exists. And so I, I, I don't know. It's a, I feel like the horror of the Mamdani victory will be that it will solidify an anchor anti Zionism as a, not as an implicit core value of the Democrats, but that basically it's going to be one of the litmus tests of 2026, that Seth molten is the tip of the iceberg and that this is some unless there is a surprise or unless Mamdani wins, but wins in a squeaker. You know, be basically Cuomo has a surge. He still wins because he has all the advantages of being the Democratic candidate in the city that has a five or six to one Democratic registration advantage. But he only wins by four or he only wins by five or he only wins by three or something like that. And then maybe people in the Democratic Party go, oh, I see, like he was ahead by 20 and then as people got to know him, they didn't really like all this socialist and anti Zionist stuff. Maybe I should remain as I should try to be plain vanilla, which is what you guys claim Spamberger has been trying to do, right? Just like, you know, be all things to all people. Can I mention something about the shutdown before we move on? I think is important because watching the shutdown discussions over the, over the last week, as Matt says, like they're saying Trump is seizing power with the shutdown and air traffic controllers. What's going to happen when Thanksgiving rolls around and the air traffic controllers aren't being paid? And they, that's a legit concern.
- [66:24]
Abe Greenwald
By the way, there was a slowdown in LA in L. A just yesterday because of it.
- [66:28]
John Podhoretz
So there's the shutdown. One of the main lines of attack by liberal pundits is Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House has kept the House in recess and isn't bringing the House back. And how can he do this with the government Being shut down. This is among the most disingenuous attacks ever.
- [66:52]
Oliver Darcy
Thank you for bringing it back.
- [66:53]
John Podhoretz
Because the House has already voted. Yeah, the House has coverage. They voted on how to keep the government open.
- [67:02]
Oliver Darcy
The New York Times, the story.
- [67:04]
John Podhoretz
Please go ahead. Sorry.
- [67:05]
Oliver Darcy
The New York Times story was framed. Speaker Johnson uses shutdown to reduce his own power. And to understand their argument, you do have to go through the looking glass, as you just say, because the argument here is Speaker Johnson, a Republican who is opposed to Obamacare, should be using his position as speaker of the House to open the House to fight for more Obamacare subsidies. It makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense.
- [67:41]
John Podhoretz
It doesn't even matter, because the point is the House has already voted. It has nothing. If the Senate comes back with some kind of a does vote to reopen the government, but in some fashion, there has to be some kind of a negotiation with the House to harmonize the bills. If there's a reconciliation, I don't quite understand how this works. Then they'll come back and they'll do it in five hours.
- [68:09]
Oliver Darcy
What will happen is. Yeah, what we're running into now is the continuing resolution that the House passed only goes through November 21st.
- [68:20]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [68:21]
Oliver Darcy
And so in the next couple weeks, if the shutdown is not resolved by November 21, the House will have to come back into session to pass another continuing resolution that will then go to the Senate. Now, look, there is the chance that after the elections next week, the Democrats will say, well, because the people have shown by electing these three Democrats in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia, the people are with us. We're fighting the fight, and we're going to reopen the government. And Thune has promised a bill that we're going to vote on to extend these subsidies. And this is what we're going to do because we have the energy. That's a possibility. But it's also a possibility that they go in the other direction. And they say that, well, because of our victories here, we show that we're keeping up the fight to keep the government closed and which will just extend it. Then some people are saying the next benchmark would be Thanksgiving. And really, why not? Why not just keep it until the end of the year, at which point everything will lapse.
- [69:34]
John Podhoretz
Right. But at some point, the bizarre thing here is they can talk and talk and talk and talk. And this is a real challenge to, I don't know, epistemology, because the Democrats are the ones who are keeping the government closed.
- [69:50]
Oliver Darcy
Right?
- [69:51]
John Podhoretz
And they are all these liberal Pundits and they themselves are claiming that Donald Trump is keeping the government closed.
- [69:58]
Oliver Darcy
Right.
- [69:58]
John Podhoretz
And Donald Trump is not keeping the government. You can accuse Republicans of keeping the government closed and have many times in the last 30 years when they've kept the government closed. This is not one of those times. This is not one of those times.
- [70:13]
Oliver Darcy
Keeping the government closed by not giving the minority party its maximalist demands.
- [70:18]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, right.
- [70:19]
Oliver Darcy
Which is not how politics is supposed to work.
- [70:22]
John Podhoretz
Right. And even if it were supposed to work that way, the simple fact of the matter is they're not the ones keeping the government closed. The Republicans have voted how many times in the Senate to reopen the government on the.
- [70:34]
Oliver Darcy
12 times.
- [70:35]
John Podhoretz
12 times they voted. And they can't get to 60 to break the filibuster because Democrats won't. Six or seven Democrats won't join them. That's why. So it's just. That's a, That's a done deal.
- [70:51]
Oliver Darcy
It's so juvenile. It's so juvenile now. And I do want to hear from Abe, but on his dis recommendation. But it's so juvenile, John, that last week Ron Johnson had a measure called the Shutdown Fairness act which would allow essential employees to be paid, including our soldiers. Interestingly enough, two Democrats peeled off the two Democrats from Georgia, one of whom is up next year, John Ossoff. They've supported Johnson's measure, but the Democrats put in an alternate measure which would pay all federal employees, even the ones who are not deemed essential. And their title of the bill was the True Shutdown Fairness Act. So we really, it is completely devolved into playground taunt. And I know I'm the real person who's for fairness here. I don't see how you get out of that. I thought this was going to be a short shutdown. I now think I'm taking the over on thanks past Thanksgiving.
- [71:49]
John Podhoretz
I'm really upset we run out of time because I really do think we should have talked today and we will talk tomorrow about Trump and the tariffs in Canada and what's going on on his trip to Asia. But as usual, or my indiscipline has made that has made that conversation impossible today. And we do need to turn to Abe for a rare disrecommendation. Abe is doing us all a favor. Going to save us some time.
- [72:16]
Abe Greenwald
Actually, Abe personally gives lots of good dis recommendations. If you know him kind of offline like he will warn you against many terrible things. So I'm just saying.
- [72:25]
Christine Rosen
Well, I disrecommend most things.
- [72:29]
John Podhoretz
Very Wise.
- [72:30]
Christine Rosen
Yes. So, yeah, my. My very passionate dis. Recommend is Net. The new movie now streaming on Netflix, A House of Dynamite, the Kathryn Bigelow directed movie starring. Well, this is where I get into trouble because I don't know any movie stars these days.
- [72:51]
John Podhoretz
Tracy Letts, Betty Gilpin.
- [72:53]
Oliver Darcy
We just told you.
- [72:54]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, well, Idris Elba is the only. Is the only person I recognize. And I saw the preview and it looks. I said, oh, great. National security thriller. Can't wait. I like those kinds of movies. So I settled in over the weekend and I started watching and the entire first act, sort of first third, it's cut into three parts, basically is mostly a video conference. So for those of you who spend your days stuck in zoom meetings, you'll. You're really going to find a wonderful experience by escaping into yet another zoom meeting. It's a video conference, mostly. Video conference. Kind of takes place in the White House situation room, Fort Greeley, the Pentagon. There's a. There's a deputy.
- [73:53]
John Podhoretz
You haven't said what the movie's about, Abe.
- [73:56]
Christine Rosen
The movie is about a. Well, to me, the sale. The movie's about. Because the movie is about a zoom meeting, that's why. But the movie is about a missile of unknown origin launched somewhere in the Pacific is coming toward the United States. They don't know. They don't know who. What country or a combination of countries sent it. And the entire national security apparatus is. This happens in the first thing in the morning, is sort of scrambling to figure out who it's from and what to do and how to respond. And so they, so that, that, hence the, the. The video conference and the, and the meeting. Okay, then we move to. I don't even know what happens next. I don't know which segment.
- [74:51]
Oliver Darcy
Why didn't I like it?
- [74:52]
John Podhoretz
Answer this question. Why didn't you?
- [74:54]
Christine Rosen
So, so, so here's why I didn't like it. So I said, okay, thank God we're done with that. Part two, they retell the exact same sequence of events that we saw in the video conference.
- [75:11]
Oliver Darcy
Multiple perspective. That's right. Yes.
- [75:14]
Christine Rosen
Three different perspectives, I believe.
- [75:16]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah.
- [75:17]
Christine Rosen
So, yeah, so we go through that three times. One point we get it from the final. We get with the President involved and his. How. How it affects his morning, and we see it from his perspective.
- [75:27]
Oliver Darcy
The President is a man in this movie.
- [75:29]
Christine Rosen
Yes. Yeah, it's interesting.
- [75:31]
Oliver Darcy
That's, that's.
- [75:33]
Christine Rosen
And I'm going to spoil.
- [75:34]
Oliver Darcy
It's not Angela Bassett.
- [75:36]
Christine Rosen
No, no, no.
- [75:37]
Oliver Darcy
It's in, it's in her contract that she must play the president in every single movie.
- [75:42]
Christine Rosen
It's Idris Elba. And so watching the. Watching this same story three times from different perspectives is as entertaining as waiting in a very long line or, or sort of being stuck in traffic for that amount of time because you're still in the same place. And after all this, the big payoff is we never know who sent the missile and we never know what the US Response is. That is purgatory, and that is the movie. And I'm not lying, because the message of the movie is our national security architecture is this house of dynamite that we've been living in that could blow at any time. And apparently it's going to blow, but we don't know anything.
- [76:37]
Oliver Darcy
This is why we need the Golden Shield.
- [76:40]
John Podhoretz
The Golden Shield, that's right. Now, here's what's interesting about this. This was made by Kathryn Bigelow, who won an Oscar for the Hurt Locker and then made Zero Dark Thirty. They made a terrible movie called Detroit and now has made this. And I'm struck by. So this is one of these. Oh, my God, a nuclear. You know, the missile is going to hit us and we're all going to die. And so obviously this is about how it's bad that there are these missiles and nuclear power and stuff like that. And I'm a huge admirer of the movie Oppenheimer. I did say it was like the best American movie the last five years and stuff like that. But if you remember, the final message of Oppenheimer is Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein are together standing by a body of some kind of pond at Princeton, and they both sort of agree that the splitting of the atom and the invention of nuclear power and, or atomic power at the time is going to destroy the world. And they are so shaken by this conversation that Einstein, rattled, walks past Robert Downey's character, Lewis Strauss, thus setting in motion the rage that Lewis Strauss feels about Oppenheimer dissing him. That causes all of the action in the movie that is all about how Oppenheimer is mistreated by the federal government, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so. But the message is we have unleashed a demon that is going to destroy us all. That scene takes place in 1946. So it's 79 years since the scene two atomic bombs were used in 1945. No nuclear weapon has been used since. And Christopher Nolan wants us to feel as though we. The greatest risk to humanity is the atomic age, when we know that that is not the case. Like it didn't. It didn't happen. It hasn't happened. And just like this movie, which is like we'll never be able to manage in a crisis when we've just been through a two year war between Israel and Hamas or you might even say 15 years between Israel and Hamas with missiles and weaponry and stuff like that, that involved lots of interceptions of missiles. And as Matt says, we are now going to attempt Golden Dome. Yeah, I call it Golden Shield Golden Dome that we are going to attempt to, to deploy an anti ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile defense system that is now very plausible based on the fact that there are anti missile defense systems from the smallest to just not quite upper atmosphere in ballistic missiles. But you know, like the last 20 years have seen unbelievable advances in this. You need to hit a bullet with a bullet in order to save us from, from a nuclear strike. And these kind of mushy liberals, Hollywood liberals are still trying to scare us with the, with the bomb.
- [80:13]
Oliver Darcy
Well, like everything, it makes a comeback. The social. You know, there's the day after the famous film from 1982 about what America would look like after nuclear war and that took place during the nuclear freeze movement. What's interesting about this, you know, a movie like House of Dynamite or there's a book, a recent book that kind of outlines what a nuclear war would look like. Very scary. Other Oppenheimer.
- [80:43]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [80:43]
Oliver Darcy
Is somewhat related to this kind of, this new kind of nuke scare. It's not connected. It's, it's, it's almost displaced. It's in a weird way because you know, you, you will go on that and you talk what you do. And I said, I said to myself, well that course that's why we needed Operation Midnight Hammer. Yeah, right. We needed to destroy the Iranian nuclear program because we don't want nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of apocalyptic Islamic fundamentalists.
- [81:11]
John Podhoretz
Right, right.
- [81:12]
Oliver Darcy
And that's why we need the golden dome and missile defense in order to create defenses should the nuclear arms fall into the wrong hands or mistakenly be used or purposefully used.
- [81:24]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [81:26]
Oliver Darcy
I guess, I guess the closest thing we have to kind of the nuclear scare of the 1980s when of course, you know, you had the two superpowers pointing nuclear weapons at each other is what's happening in Ukraine. And the, the fear, the fear that Putin will use a tactical nuclear weapon at some point in order to guarantee his takeover of Ukraine.
- [81:51]
Christine Rosen
He just tested a new missile.
- [81:53]
Oliver Darcy
He did just test a new, Chinese.
- [81:56]
John Podhoretz
Are testing a new missile and all that. I'm not, I don't want to poo Poo. The threat of nuclear. I just think it's interesting.
- [82:03]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah, it's a little bit divorced.
- [82:04]
John Podhoretz
That's what.
- [82:04]
Oliver Darcy
It's so strict. But you know what it means.
- [82:06]
John Podhoretz
Here's.
- [82:07]
Oliver Darcy
Here's my improvised theory. It means the global warming scare movies have tanked, you know.
- [82:17]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [82:18]
Oliver Darcy
We need something else now, because what was the global warming scare movie was the Roland Emmerich Day After Tomorrow.
- [82:24]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Right.
- [82:25]
Oliver Darcy
Where it was actually a global freeze that. That we had ended up working, I think the climate apocalypse.
- [82:33]
John Podhoretz
Well, don't look up there was that. Don't look up more recently. Right.
- [82:37]
Oliver Darcy
With Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer.
- [82:39]
Christine Rosen
Here's an interesting question.
- [82:41]
Oliver Darcy
Jennifer Lawrence was in it.
- [82:43]
Christine Rosen
Will they go to the AI Scare.
- [82:46]
Oliver Darcy
Yeah, maybe that's what's next. That's the Mission Impossible movie.
- [82:48]
Christine Rosen
But they might not because everyone loves using it.
- [82:51]
Oliver Darcy
Right? Right.
- [82:53]
John Podhoretz
It's a funny thing.
- [82:54]
Oliver Darcy
So I guess you have to go back to nuclear stuff to make people panicked and worried.
- [82:59]
John Podhoretz
Or, or, or, or they feel it. And they feel it because of Ukraine. Or they feel it because, oh, my God, America is being run by a madman.
- [83:08]
Oliver Darcy
Trump's in charge, right?
- [83:09]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [83:09]
Abe Greenwald
But it's first point still stands. The most terrifying thing is an endless zoom meeting. I mean, this is.
- [83:14]
Oliver Darcy
This is.
- [83:14]
Abe Greenwald
We don't need to.
- [83:16]
Oliver Darcy
I think Christine is sending us a message here.
- [83:18]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. I gotta walk through this as we do this. It's like a zoom meeting. And we've now been at this zoom meeting for an hour and 16 minutes and 15 seconds. So for Matt, Christine and Abram. John. But Horiz, keep the candle bur.