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- [00:04]
John Andrassic
Hope for the best, expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the worst, Hope for the best.
- [00:25]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, June 20, 2025. I am Jon Pod Horowitz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:36]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:37]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:39]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [00:40]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [00:43]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:44]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And joining us today for the first time, musician, philanthropist, rocker, known in the world of fame as the. As a human being with a band name as his solo performing name. It's John Andrassic, known as Five for Fighting, which is not a band. He is Five for Fight. You are Five for Fighting. There's there, there was an act called Now Now I'm Losing Control Myself. There was a fine frenzy. There was a female singer who called herself A fine frenzy, which is the only other example of this I can think of. Or Fall Out Boy, I guess, is a one person, but of course that is a person. I don't know. Anyway, you are Five for Fighting.
- [01:35]
Christine Rosen
Well, Fall Out Boy is the opposite.
- [01:36]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right?
- [01:37]
Christine Rosen
It's a name that suggests one person.
- [01:39]
Jon Pod Horowitz
But it's a band. That's right. Thank you. Okay, well, this just goes to show how I'm so hip. It's really crazy. Anyway, John, of course you are. Your legendary hits include Hundred Years and, and Superman. And you have, over the last 18 months, repurposed or adapted or used as a theme song for your support of the cause of the hostages being held in Gaza. You have taken your song Superman, and it has become a kind of unofficial anthem of the, you know, get them home, bring them, bring them home movement, if it's a movement. So we're thrilled to have you with us and we'll ask you many questions, but two things to bring up before we ask you any questions. One, as my grandfather would say, it's never a dull day with the Dodgers because the Brooklyn Dodgers were very inconstant and flighty team. And they would win 10 games in a row, and then they would lose 20 games in a row. And it was very nerve wracking for the good people of Brooklyn, being fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers. And never a dull day with Donald Trump either, since after sort of a week of seeming to move inexorably in the direction of the United States coming into the Israeli action against Iran's nuclear program, he announced yesterday out of nowhere, or through his press secretary, Caroline Levitt, that there would be a. He would do, he would make a decision about what to do within two weeks and that he was reopening the prospect of negotiations with the Iranian regime and that Steve Witkoff would go and do something rather, and Marco Rubio would do something or other. And the Europeans are doing something or other in some way or other with somebody or other, and their planes are flying out of Iran, maybe to China, maybe to Oman. Nobody knows.
- [03:46]
Seth Mandel
So can I say, John, the statement had that, like that trademark Trumpian incoherence that you think just might be purposeful. Maybe.
- [03:58]
Abe Greenwald
But this is important because I think for those who aren't extremely close watchers of Trump, two weeks is his default time frame for everything. I mean, when you, when he's done it with tariffs, he's done it with other major policy shifts. For him, it's the pause button. And he can really, he can undo the pause button at any time. There's really no strategy to it. So I think all these efforts on the part of geopolitical leaders to game out what he. Why does he need two weeks? Is it, what is 14 days going to change? No, it's just him literally going, I don't know yet.
- [04:29]
Jon Pod Horowitz
You know, in the Bible, of course, as you know that there is a phrase in the Bible to indicate the passage of time, but nobody ever knows what that passage of time is. Which is 40 days and 40 nights. Right. So the ark is out for 40 days and 40 nights. Various things happen. 40 days and 40 nights. Two weeks is Trump's 40 days. And it was two weeks to stop the spread. It was two weeks he was gonna release his healthcare plan. We should have that for you in about two weeks. So, yes, it's very helpful to point out that this is a. I don't want to do something yet, or I don't have it all developed yet, or it's not all in place yet.
- [05:09]
Abe Greenwald
Well, like, you can't make me in this context, but.
- [05:11]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right, okay. So. So there's that. And so we are now in a new universe in which Israel is going to continue doing whatever it's doing with, with America's blessing. That's clear. And so if Israel should happen in the next two weeks to figure out a way to take out the Ford out nuclear installation by itself. And one assumes that they have plans like that at the ready or they wouldn't have started this conflict in the first place, maybe that'll happen and the cup will pass from Trump's lips and he will not actually have to make a decision about America. Doing this, he certainly sounds like he has said flatly there will be no Iranian nuclear weapon. That will either happen because the Iranians will surrender unconditionally or it will be made impossible for them militarily. That isn't. That is the American position. How we get there is the question that is extremely vague. I thought maybe we would begin this podcast. Our own Abe Greenfield. Did I say Greenfeld? What is. What is.
- [06:19]
Seth Mandel
Okay, thanks.
- [06:19]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Our own Abe. Our own Abe Greenwald.
- [06:22]
Abe Greenwald
He's an alias when he wants to.
- [06:24]
Jon Pod Horowitz
You know, I am, I am. This is not good. Okay, it's Friday. Our own Abe Greenwald writes a daily.
- [06:32]
Christine Rosen
Newsletter in your defense, John. This is because every single day either common a tweets or somebody else says that something crazy is going to happen overnight in Iran. And we all sit there until 3am waiting for whatever it is because of the 7 hour time difference. So you can be forgiven for for.
- [06:51]
Jon Pod Horowitz
The exhaustion if Trump's time frame is two weeks. Iran is tonight. Tonight there will be, there will be a display such as the world has never display of rage and fire such as the world has never seen. Anyway, Abe Greenwald, our executive editor and the author of Commentary's daily newsletter, which you can subscribe to go to commentary.org, look at the top banner and subscribe to Abe's brilliant newsletter. And he really hit one out of the park yesterday. And so I thought maybe, Abe, you could read. We've done this I think once before. You could read the newsletter and we can, we can move on and have our conversation today based on what you wrote yesterday.
- [07:33]
Seth Mandel
All right, sounds good. Thanks, John. It's called a lesson in victory for the West. It's hard at this point to see a future in which Iran's nuclear program survives. One way or another, it seems the Fordo nuclear facility is going to be destroyed. And that's the ball game. The most likely scenario is that Israel, the US or both will bomb it to dust. The most improbable is that Ayatollah Khamenei will agree at the 11th hour to end the country's nuclear enrichment, thus avoiding further bombardment. If and when Iran's nuclear program is a thing of the past, it will mark the third existential threat to Israel that has been defanged by the Jewish state. The Mossad and the IDF have rendered Hezbollah too weak to act and Hamas is a cowering remnant. While the Iran backed Houthis continue to fire on Israel sporadically. The fact of Iran's now decimated military leadership is sure to weaken Them as well. Has anyone in modern times underestimated their enemy so ruinously as Iran and its proxies did Israel? Soon after the attack of of October 7, there was a lot of talk about the sinister genius of Hamas. I never saw it. I saw rather the worst of humanity come together to inflict abominations on innocence in the deluded hope of an impossible outcome. The greatest obstacle to committing an atrocity isn't evading security cameras or cutting fences. It's one's own conscience. Hamas just took that out of the equation. That's not genius, it's depravity. And Hamas's great leap wasn't logistical. It was moral. They leapt into a moral pit in which all evil acts are sanctioned. In any event, few see their genius now. They pulled it off because Israel had had its guard down. But that changed fast, and Israel went from one stupefying success to the next in crippling Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran Israel. Israel also will have paralyzed three terrorist enemies of the United States and the west, one of which was about to go nuclear. The Western world has needed a righteous victory for a long time. After the myriad complications of the Iraq war and America's retreat from Afghanistan, the idea of attainable victory disappeared entirely. That's why American policymakers dismissed it out of hand as a possibility. For Ukraine when Russia invaded, victory had become instead an abstract concept to mock and question. What would victory even mean? Asked those opposed to the use of American power during any given crisis. Many such people didn't know the answer because they hadn't seen victory in their lifetime. Western countries had taken a moral leap of their own, determining that any decisive action was unprincipled. Last October I In Foreign affairs, we have grown unsettled by the idea of clarity itself, as if the burdens and consequences that come with resolve are certain to be disastrous, and ambivalence is certain to yield a more favorable outcome. But this doesn't hold for people under existential attack. Clarity is all they have. It's victory or death. So the Jewish state tuned out all the internal and external noise and destroyed the Cretans who threatened its survival. It has been successful because Israel is in fact brilliant and its enemies are witless. With a fresh example of real world victory comes, one hopes, the return prospect of future victory. This would apply acutely to the U.S. should Donald Trump decide to join in Israel's effort. There's little limit on the good that could be accomplished by an American led West that no longer asks what victory means.
- [11:22]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So John andrasik you are not only an activist voice on Israel hostages and American support for Israel, but you have been very forthright, not only in your support for the Ukrainian effort to turn back the evil Russian invasion, but I think you emerged into sort of public life as a. As a political voice after the disastrous American pull out from Afghanistan and in August of 2021. So these things, I think, are all connected for you, as they are for us. Right? The pull out of Afghanistan, the green light that seemed to give Putin to attempt to swallow up a neighboring democracy, and then whatever idea about Western weakness might have been triggered, might have helped trigger the final Hamas decision to invade. How do you feel in these sort of four years now in your life as a political voice, obviously an uncommon kind of political voice in your business?
- [12:43]
John Andrassic
Well, first let me say I feel like I've been called up to the big leagues with you guys here today. It's a. It's a pleasure and all of your inspirations to me. And I'm glad Abe mentioned and you mentioned, you know, Afghanistan and Ukraine. You know, I've always been somebody who kind of has a disdain for celebrities getting on their soapbox and lecturing us about their worldview and politics and. And I think through my songs, people can kind of see my worldview. It's really more about freedom and our troops. But to me, these are not political messages. They're moral messages. I mean, you know, you abandon your allies in. In Afghanistan, you. You swore to protect and plunge 20 million women into Game of Thrones. You know, that's a bad thing. And, of course, Putin's kind of an evil guy. You know, that shouldn't be hard to pick Ukraine over Putin. And then, of course, with October 7th, if Hamas is not evil, I don't think, you know, the. Nothing is evil. So for me, these are really moral messages and took no pleasure in writing any of the songs. And every time I write one, I hope it's the last one. But I was also very frustrated in seeing kind of the collapse of the music industry and their, you know, who like to hold themselves on this high platter of human rights and dignity and gay rights and all these kind of accolades and the Bonos and the Springsteens, you know, have gone silent on so many of these issues. And. And that's, for me, just been shameful and. And I wish there were more voices. But the fact that these songs have resonated, especially the new version for Alone for the Hostages, the new Superman version, I think the fact that that was our 911 song and for me, there's no difference between 9, 11 and October 7th. So, again, I just look at these as moral messages. And the fact that I happen to be a lone voice, I think just shows how broken the culture is. But what you gonna do, right? I do what you guys do. You stand up, you say it, and you do your best to make the world a little better place.
- [14:59]
Jon Pod Horowitz
It's interesting how people like us end up kind of being grateful for scraps. Last night I was with somebody that was having some conversation. I went to see this movie, Materialists, with Dakota Johnson. Dakota Johnson was the girlfriend for a long time of Chris Martin, the lead singer of Culture.
- [15:19]
John Andrassic
Yeah.
- [15:20]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And it was like, oh, he did her wrong. She wanted to marry him. He didn't want to get married again. You know, poor Dakota Johnson. I was like, I can't hear a word against Chris Martin because he's one of the people who continued to play in Israel after everybody started announcing boycotts, and he said he wouldn't boycott. It's like that. Like, I don't really care one way or another about Coldplay, but I won't hear. I won't hear a word against Chris Martin, you know, or. And then simultaneously, a letter came out yesterday with 10 or 11 or 12 celebrities, mostly. Mostly Britons, you know, essentially calling on Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Britain, to basically embargo Israel until it stopped its depredations. And, you know, the performers that I really enjoy, like Florence Pugh, and I'm like, well, really, did you have to do this to me Now, Now. Now I'm gonna look at you.
- [16:17]
Abe Greenwald
And there's no risk for them to do it. That's actually why what and what. The very rare voices in any. Any entertainment industry. And I guess we can probably add sports to this, too. It's easy to be for gay rights. It's easy to be for the Palestinians. They have absolutely nothing to lose in doing that. What you risk in saying. And I think it's really important, John, that you framed this the way you did. It was very clarifying for me in terms of what we have tried to do on this podcast for years, these are moral questions. And we shouldn't shy away in the interest of, you know, instrumental politics or geopolitics or real politic. No, there is right and wrong. And when children are murdered and terrorists try to take over sovereign territory, whether they're from Russia or from Hamas, we have to stop it. We are one of the few places on earth that has the power and should have the will to do it. So I think, I think seeing these as moral issues doesn't make it a more difficult question. It clarifies it.
- [17:16]
John Andrassic
It makes it.
- [17:17]
Christine Rosen
Lawrence Pugh, by the way, who played a very important ally to Israel in the only good adaptation of Little Drummer Girl, of John Le Carrey's Little Drama Girl. But I mean, I'm wondering also, by the way, what the reaction is toward you, if I may ask, inside the industry. I'm just curious as to, you know, what it's like being a voice that stands out from the crowd in this way and how, I don't know, how you get treated, how, you know, how do you feel about your peer set and how do they feel about you? What is that like?
- [17:58]
John Andrassic
Well, look, I get many emails and conversations of executives and people in the business, some I've known for 30 years who are very grateful. They say, thank you for standing up. Some of them are Jewish. Some of them are not, of course. Many of them say, don't tell anybody I told you this, but thank you. They're kind of anonymous. And again, it makes me very frustrated. And I've talked to some. I haven't talked to Bond or Springsteen, but I've talked to other people. And I say to them, and to me, they are the ones that make me most angry. Because, of course, the younger generation, the Macklemores of the world, some, the Imagine Dragons, some, you know, they've been indoctrinated by the wokeness that is affecting all the kids. So you don't excuse them, but you have a certain understanding. But the older our generation of artists, every artist that played on in Madison Square Garden with me for the Concert for New York, they know better. They know better.
- [19:03]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And they're talking about the concert. You're talking about the concert for New York after 9 11.
- [19:07]
John Andrassic
This is concert for After 9 11. Every single icon in the world was there condemning Osama bin Laden, standing up for America. They know better. And they've been silent. And I've said, you know, I've said to some of their people, like, what's going on? What are you doing? Can't you even just say, free the hostages. You don't have to love Bibi. And they say to me some things that are actually true. They say, well, you know what? We're afraid for our families. And I say, I get it. They say, we're afraid that our concerts will be protested. I said, I get it. But then I say to them, you understand that that's exactly what people said in 1938. That's exactly what people said. And they have no answer for me. And they kind of slink away and they shrug their shoulders. And again, to me, that is, that is this time in music is the greatest shame I think I've seen in my lifetime. And I don't think they'll ever recover from is. It's a reflection of the culture though, right? The arts are always a reflection of the culture and we have a paralyzed moral culture. I think if you look at the polls, of course, 70, 80% of people in America support Israel, but you never hear that. The media, the music industry, tech, sometimes, of course, our college campuses, that's what people see. And I think that's really what's kind of, you know, to me, I fear for the next generation. That's what's indoctrinating our kids. And this is a long rant, but how do you fight that? And the arts has to be part of this war.
- [20:39]
Seth Mandel
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- [21:46]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Hey, it's John here. I'm happy today to talk to you about our new advertiser Shopify. Because we have been using Shopify here at Commentary to help distribute, sell and manage our merch for the Commentary podcast for a couple of years now. And they are now here and want us to tell you about how you can use them to get right, get things the way you need them to make your business work with your podcast or whatever business you may have. Because Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started, you can get started with your own design studio inside Shopify. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style, accelerate your content creation. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. You can get your 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 from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. So 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 that's shopify.com commentary shopify.com commentary I think that's why Abe's newsletter is so crystallizing, because one of the ways that you change the culture is through victory, that the response that people have to the idea that power is impotent to change the moral frame of things and that in fact, not only is it impotent, but may be counterproductive that, you know, we do this and then we, we don't, we don't succeed. And we don't succeed because maybe there's something morally wrong with the cause as opposed to the execution of the, of the effort. And we don't know what it would mean for the United States. We had this conversation now for a week or a week and a half. We don't know what would mean for the United States to participate in the, in the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program and to be the country that took out the Ford reactor and then, or, you know, system and then created a new form of deterrence against nuclear proliferation for the rest of the century. We don't know. But it's not going to be nothing. And it could be, it could have all kinds of unforeseen knockoff, knockoff consequences, more enlistments in the military, a sense of national pride that we haven't been able to, that Trump, say, wanted to summon with the military parade on Saturday. But the military parade was sort of unconnected. It was weirdly, even though it was the 250th anniversary military parade, there was something unconnected to anything real. The last military parade we had in the United States was in March or April of 1991 after we had won the Gulf War. And I was there. It was, you know, 2 million people came to Washington to watch that parade. It was the, the only thing that I ever saw that was anything remotely like it was when the Pope came to Chicago, when John Paul II came to Chicago, when I was in college in Chicago. Those are the two events that I remember being, having this sort of just change in spirit and everything was just extraordinary. So imagine that the military parade took place after, even though it'll only be like four or five bombers, you know, after, after we took out Ford out.
- [26:10]
Abe Greenwald
It's worth noting. Can I just interrupt to say it is worth noting that since, as our listeners know, I'm not a super fan of, of Hegseth at all, but the military is actually finally meeting its recruiting goals since Trump was reelected. And I think that signals among a younger generation that has a tendency towards nihilism and omni cause ideal as a, you know, ideological pursuits, that there is a hunger for that there is a sense of wanting to have a feeling of purpose and meaning and doing something for one's country. And so I agree, John. I mean, if he should have postponed the parade until perhaps we have something to celebrate. But, but, but those recruitment goal numbers, that's been a real problem in the military for a while now. And suddenly it's showing a turn. That's a, that's a good sign.
- [26:53]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Well, but I mean, that, that, that brings up, you know, your, your, your John, your introduction into the world of speaking out, which is that if you're, if you're 17, 18, 16 years old in 2021, and what you see is America withdrawing from Afghanistan and, you know, all of those images of the chaos, what would you want to join the military for? That was a, it's like, I mean, I'm old enough. You're old enough, John, to have remembered the pull, you know, to remember what happened, I think, on, on April 30, 1975, when America, when those helicopters took off from the roof of the or or the lawn of the embassy in, in Saigon and the military was very hard off in the years until Ronald Reagan was elected, there was a lot of drug abuse among people in the military and people were not meeting sort of fitness goals and were dealing drugs in the military. Like, the military was depressed and lost and could not meet us, could not meet recruitment goals in the same way, because what was the prevailing image of the American military was defeat. And so people don't want to join a cause that looks like it's a cause for defeat. And you're putting your life on the line and the leaders don't seem to Be committed to any kind of idea that this is a noble calling. Whatever they say about thanking the troops for their service, this is a noble calling. And that the application, you will be part of a mission that will make the world better and make your country safer and make your, your family proud and make your family more secure. And nobody has gotten that message.
- [28:50]
Seth Mandel
You know what the, There's a sort of, I think, mass psychological stand in for that, which is we'll protest and we'll do mob, mob activism. You know, like that's, that's how, that's because they have no model of how, how to change the world through say, the American military might, you know, they've no sense of investment in an accomplishment that they've seen in their lifetime. Talk about the younger generation. They're not, instead of enlisting to do the right thing in their twisted mind, they're, they're, they're, you know.
- [29:29]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right.
- [29:30]
Seth Mandel
Joining up with the. A different army.
- [29:33]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Yeah, go ahead.
- [29:35]
John Andrassic
I just, I just think, you know, to your point, John, it goes, I think, even beyond, you know, young teenagers who may want to join the military with Afghanistan. You know, I've, I've been blessed to kind of work with military folks my whole career and perform for them. Gary Sinise and I and his foundation. So we're always talking to military folks and families. And after Afghanistan, I spoke to probably hundreds of soldiers who said for the first time in their generational families, who've had maybe four or five generations of military families, they were advising their kids to not join. So it wasn't that we were losing kind of the new blood, we are losing the old blood that had families that really understood the sacrifice, the cost. And that I think could have been catastrophic. And I think everybody's right. Everybody likes a winner. You know who else likes a winner? The Middle east likes a winner. So I think if you see us actually, you know, not stop on the one yard line and finish this, I think the whole world, particularly the Middle east, will be emboldened and it also will be a, a massive defeat again for the left who've been telling us. And actually now the new woke. Right. You know, it's interesting, this new op ed that I wrote, I said this on Fox News last night, you know.
- [30:59]
Jon Pod Horowitz
For the last op ed. You published this op ed earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal.
- [31:04]
John Andrassic
Yeah. And you know, typically, you know, for the last 18 months, you know, the hatred I get is the typical, the left, the free Palestine. Rashida Tlaibs, you know that, you know, the media the usual suspects. But in the last couple months and with this new op ed, I'm starting to get a lot of the vitriol from the. Right. From the woke, right. The. That really scares me. So I think that's something too that, you know, we have to address. I know you guys do that every day, but that is a very dangerous new trend on this kind of battle for civilization. So that said, I do feel, talking to my folks, that there's a new invigoration. They're excited. They believe America wants to win. They're disgusted by kind of half plane Ukraine, Afghanistan, and they're excited that there may be finally some accountability for General Milley, General Austin Anthony Blinken, all these folks who in their mind dishonored the uniform and betrayed America.
- [32:03]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I have a friend named also on.
- [32:05]
Christine Rosen
The subject of honor, I mean, I mentioned something about this the other day, but I can't quite wrap my head around the, you know, what you refer to as the woke. Right. A lot of these guys are also, you know, they project toughness as an ideology almost. But you know, the Iranians, we caught them trying to assassinate our president and then they started dragging, you know, dragging us around in negotiations and stuff like that. And you think like there's a lot of disrespect and American honor is, is not even just the idea of putting on a uniform. It's also the idea that, you know, this, this country of Iran is, its leadership is basically taking just free shots at us and making us look kind of silly and, you know, the tail wagging the dog and I don't know. And there was just a certain amount of honor in, you know, the president saying, well, you know, you know, my terms come back to the table when you're ready to say yes. Until then, I can't tell the. I'm not. I don't tell the Israelis what to do. They, you know, this is, this is the situation you have walked yourself into and this is the situation you must walk yourself out of. And I'm not going to throw you a lifeline after you tried, you know, to have me assassinated and make me look like a fool on the world stage. Right. Like there's a baseline of honor just in what's, what's happening right now.
- [33:28]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Well, you know, there are two things about the woke, right. And the kind of attacks that we get when we talk. So I have never, I've not served in the military. I think none of us has served in the military. And so the line that is proffered about you Know, chicken hawks is oh, you're happy to send other, the children of other people off to war and you know, while you sit there in your ivory tower or whatever and let them, let them die for Israel or for some cause or to chaos the Middle East. And you know, it's a minimally effective line and I think was a rel would have been a relatively effective line 60 years ago when we had a universal draft or it wasn't even universal enough. It was only, only became a universal draft when, when the military, when the student exemptions and things were lifted and then there was a draft lottery. But everyone who is in the US military has chosen to be in the US military and they've made this choice because they want to be of use at the very least, you know, unless they're less. Unless you think it's a careerist move to go into the military because you're going to make so much money and you're going to just, you know, you're going to see the world or whatever. You're not going to make a lot of money and you might see the world but you don't get to pick where you go. These are people who have chosen to serve their country and it is an incredible insult to them to say that if people discuss their deployment so that they can be the tip of the spear, that they have chosen to be that they have no agency, that they're just being moved around like little, you know, chess pieces.
- [35:12]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, well, it's.
- [35:13]
Jon Pod Horowitz
None of them had to go in in the first place.
- [35:14]
Abe Greenwald
It's also offensive to those of us who. My cousin is in career military right out of high school. He's an army rang Ranger. He's done multiple combat tours. I love him to death. Many of us and I've, we all have friends and my nephew was in.
- [35:28]
Jon Pod Horowitz
The Navy for four years. Yeah, we all know, everybody does. Yeah.
- [35:31]
Abe Greenwald
So that in that sense we all as, as good Americans care about the well being of our enlisted men and women. So that's what drives me crazy about that argument. Like you have to sacrifice your job. I don't see them actually though remember that many of these people would drag their children into social media spats. They do bring their children as human shields to the protests they attend. So perhaps their view of what a parent's role in one in a child's life is a little distorted.
- [35:57]
Jon Pod Horowitz
But so the, the woke. The woke right stuff here, that that argument is being thrown at me five times a day by woke right next, you know, you know, you fat Slob, you know, you don't, you know, you're a fat slob, and you want to send, you know, nice Christian boys off to fight for your Jewish fight in your Jewish war. Okay, that's Twitter, right? Congratulations on the existence of social media. But my point is that these people are. I didn't make anybody enlist in the US I have, I've had, I've played no role in anyone enlisting in the US Military. And I do thank them for their service, and I think that they want to be. They want to serve. And that doesn't mean, you know, sitting around in Norfolk necessarily, but this may be terrifying. Yeah, go ahead.
- [36:50]
Abe Greenwald
I just, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is actually the missing piece on the Right that needs to be corrected as well with regard to how our leaders speak about our military and its purpose. Because this is actually why the parade that Trump did was a little disconcerting. He talks about strength and seeing the military as a tool that he can use to do things around the world. And that's fine. That's the role of the president. But he doesn't have that secondary argument about what we've been talking about, our moral purpose. Why do we send military certain places and not others? Why do we make these choices? What, what values do they represent and literally risk their lives for so that we can have freedom? And I know that's some of, that's just tone and style, but that's what's missing when we think about what young people, when they think, when they HEAR People like J.D. vance and others going, no forever wars. No forever wars. No forever wars. That's a negative message. I would like to see the positive message beyond simply, you know, a targeted strike here and there to show our muscle. What is our, what is our military for? What does it stand for?
- [37:50]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Can I tell. Tell you guys a story that I didn't even really know. I know a great deal about my, my father, who has written approximately 98 memoirs in his life, and I, you know, have heard him speak my entire life. I'm 64 years old, and he has not been shy about telling stories about his life. But a couple of months ago, with my son around, he. I never really heard this. He was in, he was in the military. He joined. He joined. He, he was drafted in 1953, just as Korea was ending and was sent to Germany. And he had, he had a, both a bachelor's degree and a, and a, and an MA or whatever. He. From Columbia and from Cambridge. So he was this highly educated, 23 year old in the US military on some base in Germany, you know, typing forms because he could type. And word came down from Washington that because we had finished Korea and because the, there were all these men in Germany facing down the Soviets that you know, maybe some senator said with agreement from the Eisenhower, maybe somebody should talk to the enlisted, the men, you know, the non comms or whatever like why they were there, what were they doing in Germany, why were they in Germany? You're talking about you know, 18 year old kids from Kentucky or Mississippi or Idaho or whatever. Assume they didn't get a particularly good high school education pre a lot of tell, didn't get a lot of news, didn't know it had, you know, had never been more than 50 miles away from home until they were drafted. So maybe they should, the, the, the you know, the commandant of the base or whoever, you know, the general, the colonel in charge of the base should give a class once a week in which he would explain why America was, had all the, you know, had you in uniforms sitting in Germany. What was the purpose of that. And whoever was running the base was extremely uncomfortable with this. He himself was not an intellectual, not a thinker, he was just a, he was a, he was a career military man who had risen through the ranks. Wasn't a speaker, you know, he was a leader but he wasn't a speaker and he didn't know what to do. And somehow it devolved upon my father to stand in front of a group of people on his base on a Friday afternoon at noon like a lunch and learn and give a talk about what communism was, what democracy was, what capitalism was, what socialist economics were, what communists wanted that was different from what we wanted and why we had to face them down. And apparently this was revelatory to the people to whom he was speaking. Lecture was very popular and he pretty much spent the rest of his time in uniform going around to bases in Germany giving this speech while, while doing other stuff. But you know that, that he had become a kind of classroom instructor on the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union and why the Cold War was being fought and why it was just, and it was almost happenstance that that took place at all that somebody said hey we better tell the better tell, tell the boys what they're doing here.
- [41:47]
Christine Rosen
Was that, was that part of what led to him writing the book why we were in Vietnam?
- [41:50]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Was that like he wasn't in Vietnam, he was in Germany and Korea. But no, but I mean yeah, the insurance destruction? Well yeah, as I Say I never. I did not know about this until three or four months ago. So if that, what if that had been a motivating factor. In Norman Potter, it says why we were in Vietnam, you know, that, that, that comes as news to me and might have been an inspiration to him. But I only bring this up as a story because it goes. Gets exactly to Christine's point, which is that there have been times in American history when presidents have been incredibly forthright and clear about what it was that we were doing and why we were fighting and what kind of fight there was. And the response to it, like the response after 911 to George W. Bush's remarkable set of speeches, the one at the national cathedral, which happened 10 days after, after the attack of September 11, and various other things, did inspire an entire generation of people to want to fight for their country. And maybe, maybe that turned into a disappointment, but it's not as though it could not, or many people found it a disappointment, but it's not as though that cannot happen. And it is a terrible weakness of Obama's and of course, Biden's and of Trump's that they could never come up with a moral frame except thanking people for their service as though, you know, as though they were nurses, you know, I mean, or they, you know, they were, they were people who were, you know, sort of like taking care of your, you know, elderly grandmother. Thank you so much. You know, I know you have other things you could do with your life, and you're. It's really great that you're, you're doing this instead of.
- [43:43]
Seth Mandel
But it's true that I think the backlash to the war on terror and the war in Iraq and, broadly speaking, the freedom agenda, which is not the freedom agenda, but whatever. One result was that talking about morals and military might, the two became decoupled in public discourse. No one wanted to even go there because it was thought of as like a ploy or, you know, some. Some sort of failed promise or something.
- [44:23]
F
Hello, this is Dr. Rob Williams, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation. Survivors of the Holocaust have long been the bravest voices speaking out against antisemitism and all forms of hate around the world, whether it's European anti Semitism of the 1930s and 1940s or the anti Semitism we see on our streets and campuses. We'll explore it on the USC Shoah Foundation's new podcast, Searching for Never Again. We'll hear stories that are heartbreaking and stories that are inspiring. Every Tuesday on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever Fine podcasts can be found.
- [44:58]
G
Hi, I'm Anthony Scaramucci and I'd like to tell you about my new show, Lost Boys. It's a limited edition series. It's hosted by myself and Professor Scott Galloway. We're having honest conversations about a topic no one wants to talk about. The crisis that young men are facing nowadays. Our talks discuss why so many young men are struggling to find purpose, connection and identity in today's world. We dig into what's really going on, politics, culture, loneliness, even rage, and what we can do to help change the narrative. This is a six part series that will challenge your assumptions and encourage you to continue the conversation from the dinner table to the office. Follow and listen to Lost Boys on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also go to Lostboys Men and sign up to get the latest episodes and news.
- [45:59]
Jon Pod Horowitz
We had two different presidents in Obama and in Trump, who kind of drained the meaning from being in the military. And one of the ways that they tried to deal with this, because they themselves had not served and because they did not have a feel, much of a feel for this, was to surround themselves with generals, right? Obama surrounded himself with generals, you know, and Trump certainly, you know, in his first couple of years, decided he didn't like any of them. But he had, you know, he had Kelly, he had McMaster, he had, I'm sorry, I'm blocking on who the Defense secretary was. He had generals all over the place. And he said, I love my generals. And then he decided the generals were not, you know, were not sufficiently loyal to him or were mean to him or whatever. But all of that was an effort to deal with the obvious difficulty of being the commander in chief when you yourself had never put yourself in harm's way. Of course, George W. Bush had been in the National Guard. Clinton had some of the same difficulties as well, and used Colin Powell very effectively as a means of guarding himself. I don't know, it's a very strange, strange set of circumstances.
- [47:26]
Abe Greenwald
But I'm curious, especially because, John, you have a lot of contact, not just with sort of the political leadership or the, or the top brass, but just regular enlisted folks. When you, when you do these concerts and stuff for them, have you noticed a shift either towards more optimism or more pessimism among just general enlisted folks as we've gotten further and further away from, you know, the war on terror and nation building type efforts? Or is it, or are they? I mean, I do think people, at least from my own experience, people tend to over politicize what they think enlisted folks believe versus how they see their own role.
- [48:02]
John Andrassic
I think the answer to your question, Christine, I think the military folks I talked to, it's a combination of kind of relief and excitement. And I think Seth mentioned the word honor earlier and I think it really goes to that. I think people still don't realize the depth of damage that General Milley did because I think for me, you asked me at the beginning of this podcast what got you started. You know, for me, I've always had great respect for military leaders and I've always realized our presidents say crazy things, they do some crazy things. But at the end of the day, if it gets really bad, our military leaders will tell us the straight scoop. And not only did General Milley lie about the extraordinary success of Afghanistan, he covered up that, the dementia of our commander in chief, which is, I don't know if there's a higher dereliction of duty. So I think within the military there is not only this anger about policy, there is this disgust of the top leaders dishonoring their service. So I think to your guys point, there is nobody in the administration who can speak with the uniform on to explain why we are doing these things. You know, Marco Rubio is very good at it, but he's not wearing a uniform. So I think the administration does need to identify somebody who can regain not just the trust of the troops, the trust of the American people who have frankly disdain for the military now. So I think, you know, and I know there are folks out there now, it's hard to deal with Trump and all that stuff, but I think it's very important. You may not like Colin Powell, you may not like Petraeus, but somebody that has a stature and can talk about these things, why we're doing these things, you know, I think we can agree Pete cannot do that. And so they need to find somebody who can.
- [49:49]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And one of the sadnesses about J.D. vance, although I think if J.D. vance had a different take on this, I don't think he would probably be vice president now because he was there to represent this, he got the job to represent this world, this kind of isolationist worldview or be the voice of it. But he of course what did serve, he was a Marine and, and who knows, he's very young and he's very malleable and his opinions are very malleable. And he from what I was hearing earlier this week, had flipped and gone become a supporter of American military action in, in against Ford out. Not in part because he Thought that's where Trump was going, obviously. And he is supposed to be a loyal deputy, but he is, you know, he's a kid. I mean, he's almost 25 years younger than I am. And as I keep saying, Nixon was 39 when he became president. And he was the, you know, he was the anti communist, you know, McCarthyite hawk monster in 1953 who ended up doing detente in 1970 and 71 and 72. You know, I mean, so he, he was young then. He was in the 60s as president, he became something else.
- [51:08]
Christine Rosen
Life is very n nicks into China. The new nicks into China will be vans to Kiev.
- [51:13]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I know that's not that. That is. Yeah, yeah, it would be very interesting. But I do think also just to get back to the woke. Right stuff, you know, there was this astonishing moments in the last couple of days that are very surprising to me, honestly, like when in this conversation between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz said the Iranians tried to assassinate Donald Trump. And Ted. And Tucker Carlson said didn't happen. There are two people in federal custody charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump under orders from Iran. Tucker, whom I've known for 30 years, did he forget or did he not care? And that in the course of that conversation, it was of no moment to him to say that didn't happen because. Okay, what do you think?
- [52:20]
Seth Mandel
I think he figured rightly that Cruz didn't have chapter and verse to cite at hand. And that's the important thing. Seth wrote a good piece yesterday about the games that Tucker plays. And one of the games is to sort of the main game is to get off the actual topic, to expose in some sideway the, the hollowness or ineffectualness of, of the, of his opposition. So if he could just, if he could just get Cruz to stammer over who was, what intelligence they had on what assassins, where, and it's all out there. I mean, like, you know, these stories broke a long time ago, but, but he didn't have it at hand. And that was the game that, that became the clip. A clip. And that became the story.
- [53:15]
Christine Rosen
And the guy. And the guy who is in federal custody admitted to it. Now, Tucker may say, oh, whoa, I, maybe that was a coerced confession, blah, blah, blah, but he doesn't even go that far. He just says like, didn't happen. The guy, the guy. There's an IRGC asset, an Iranian asset, has been an Iranian asset for decades who is in federal custody who said, yeah, on 10-7-2024, the IRGC sent me official notice saying it's time to give give us your plan fully drawn up to take out Donald Trump, you know, etc. So like you'd have to go very far down the rabbit hole to, you know, get around this. And he just, I think he just steamrolls through it and assumes that people will believe that he, you know, if he says it didn't happen, they'll assume the evidence isn't there.
- [54:00]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So there's Tucker. And then yesterday, Trump's most gobstopping cabinet selection that thankfully was nipped in the bud before it ever got anywhere. Matt Cates tweets out something like if Israel is a democracy, why don't Arabs get to vote there? So just, so now I think he.
- [54:22]
Abe Greenwald
Said when do Arabs get to vote?
- [54:24]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And when do Arabs get to vote?
- [54:25]
Abe Greenwald
And hilarious response was well in the next election because they all have voting rights.
- [54:29]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Just, just to, just to everybody listening to me knows this but I mean that so he's a former congressman from Florida by the way, had a record of you know, extremely hawkish pro Israel statements since he was a congressman from Florida saying this Israel is 20% Arab Arabs. The Arab citizens have the right to vote and vote in elections at pretty much the exact same percentage level as the Jews of Israel do, like around 75%. Although recent elections the number has, has, has, has gone down. And by the way they vote in these numbers and they vote for parties that don't win. So you know, until, until one Arab politician joined Naftali Bennett's coalition in 2022, the one of the two prime ministers who served in the long, in the interregnum in the long term of Benjamin Netanyahu. Only one Arab politician has ever served in the Israeli government. So their votes are kind of ineffectual. They still go to the polls. They go to the polls like everybody in Israel and they know that they are the only people, they are the only people in the Middle east who are voting in a Matt Gaetz, you know, who I guess had to take time out from, you know, grooming 17 year old girls needed, needed to tweet that out. Did he forget? Did he not know? He's not really stupid. It's just this weird thing where now people just will say anything. It's kind of, I mean I guess it follows along the post truth world that we are living in, but actual statements of the opposite of fact seem to now be a pretty serious component of the woke, right?
- [56:32]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, it's something newer than the post truth world, actually, John. I mean, because I've seen, I've tuned in to a bunch of this sort of, you know, a handful of sort of woke. Right. Discussions about Israel and World War II and all that. And a lot of these guys sit there and they, they, they, they don't, they mispronounce every name and they don't know. And then someone will say, well, I don't think that's what happened. And then in real time they, they go to their chat GPT to find out and you know, supposed answers.
- [57:03]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, like it's performative misinformation for attention. That's all it is. And they are, I mean, they long ago outsourced their intellectual capabilities before Chat CBT even existed. But it is, but, but it is new in the sense that they're doing. I think they know exactly what they're doing. It's to draw attention, to create controversy, to. I mean, in Gates's case, isn't he on the Russian Asset tv? What is it, One America Network or whatever? Like he has a show now. I mean, he's just trying to get attention and that's one way to do it.
- [57:32]
Christine Rosen
But yeah, the best, the best was that Candace Owens on the famous interview on Theo Vaughn's podcast where, you know, things kind of broke through in the whole manosphere thing out into the open. Candace Owens is sitting there with Theo Vaughn saying the reason that JFK was killed is because he wanted AIPAC to register or APAC's predecessor organization to register as a foreign agent of the Israeli government. You know, and you should, you know, and Vaughn says, well, let's, let's, let's look, let's look that up. Let's go. And she says, yeah, you should Google that. Google. And Vaughn has a, a screen up where you can see what he Googles and he's showing the audience. This is something that Joe Rogan sort of brought into the podcast, Theo von Google. And you Google this conspiracy theory and it's like, oh, the first result is Wikipedia. And if you read the, the excerpt underneath the link, there's a line about, you know, somebody wanting him to register as a foreign agent or whatever. And it's like it's a, it's a, it's a half a sentence from an excerpt from a Wikipedia article from Googling, you know, but this is literally what they're showing you that they are doing.
- [58:41]
Seth Mandel
But you know, I think a lot of this, so much of this new type of unapologetic falsehood was brought into the public square after October 7th when regular media started taking Hamas accounts as fact. And you could just throw that out there. And then everyone on social media was retweeting the Pallywood clips and all those fake clips, and it just sort of grew out of that. Like you could just claim anything against Israel and the Jews.
- [59:20]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Okay, well, let's spread this out to other sources other than the woke. Right. For example, this morning, Richard Engel, who is the foreign correspondent for NBC News, and like a lot of these guys, very physically, personally, very brave, you know, has gone been in war zones now for 15 years. And like Clarissa Ward or, you know, Trey Gangster. These, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're going places and doing things and showing you things that it takes a lot of sang froid to do. And I don't, you know, belittle that. He tweets out this morning, he does an interview with Yuli Edelstein, who is a member of the Knesset. And he, the tweet says, veteran Israeli lawmaker says Israel has been crying wolf over Iran for 20 years. Crying wolf. So this is what Richard Engel tweets out. So I'm like that, that there's something, I don't know. Juliettelstein But I followed his career. There's something fishy here. I don't get this. So I click on his own link in the Twitter post and it's to. There's a video of this interview with Edelstein and there is a paragraph caption essentially leading up to the video. And here's what it says. In the interview with NBC News's Richard Engel, Yuli Edelstein, the chair of Israel's Foreign affairs and Defense Committee, said Israel has been, quote, crying wolf for 20 years, unquote, about Iran's nuclear capabilities, adding that, quote, now the wolf has really arrived, unquote. So Edelstein says Israel's a crying wolf, and now the wolf is at the door. First of all, he's not a native English speaker, so assuming that he was speaking in English here, he may not know what the phrase crying wolf means. He may have meant that Israel has been sounding the warning about the Iranian nuclear program for 20 years, and now the wolf is at the door. Even if he didn't mean what he said or he meant what he said or something like that. Engel writes a tweet that is aimed at the anti war left and the MSNBC audience, or something like that saying, see, even in Israel, they think that Israel is bullshitting the Iranian nuclear threat linking to his own interview where the person says the threat is now here. That is, that's also happening right now. That's. That's not Tucker. That's not Candace Owens. That's the chief foreign correspondent of NBC News.
- [62:12]
John Andrassic
Can we talk about, can we talk about trains? I love training. My wife loves training. What did he tweet yesterday? Bombing an Israeli hospital is bad. Bombing a Gaza hospital is bad. Bombing an Iranian hospital is bad, period. Trey Inkst. Yeah, you know, Fox News, you know, that moral equivalency and that was not taking something out of context. That was basically, you know, in my mind, you know, Hamas propaganda.2. And I think you're right. I mean, look, everybody's been used to the media line to us about Biden for four years. Everybody sees, everybody's so tribal. It doesn't matter if it's true. They're going to believe it. They're going to believe what they want to believe. And that's how these guys build their brands. But I also like that they're so insane that it's easy, easy to ridicule them. I love the fact that Tucker's how many people in Iran has now become a meme and, you know, there's nothing better than destroying foolish pundits than the Babylon be right. So I think the fact that they're becoming jokes and punchlines and verbs and Matt Gaetz is very healthy. And, you know, thank goodness there's not. So far there hasn't been one that's kind of smart, you know, Candace Owens. But, but it is, as I said, I've been feeling a lot of the. But they have their followers and their followers hate Jews. And I've been feeling that a lot in the last couple weeks. And before I forget, you know, we mentioned my, my op ed. I want to say our op ed because Seth there was and his wife Bethany were my partners in crime on this. And they actually made it really good. Mine was much more angry and bitter.
- [64:01]
Abe Greenwald
Seth, with all of our rough edges, he. That is very good at that.
- [64:05]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Seth, Seth is a, Seth is a person whisperer, a child whisperer. He's a dog whisperer. He's an op ed whisperer.
- [64:14]
Abe Greenwald
Can I just add to something that John just said, made me think that the ideal of journalistic objectivity, which is something that we have many times argued all journalists should strive towards, it's probably an impossible goal. But I think what's happening now is that. And it's happening as the Trey Yings example suggests. Moral equivalency has become their idea of what objectivity is.
- [64:36]
F
Right.
- [64:37]
Abe Greenwald
It's like we'll just say everything's the same, and then we'll seem objective. But that's not what objectivity is.
- [64:43]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right. That's a very good point. I mean, that's so deep a point that one could spend hours exploring that strange devolution of the idea that you're just supposed to report the facts into, you know, you're just not supposed to take a stand on anything, because that's fine. Which is, again, maybe people shouldn't take stands if they're going to try to relay the facts. But.
- [65:10]
Christine Rosen
But it's also something that started in the mainstream.
- [65:15]
Jon Pod Horowitz
It was first.
- [65:15]
Christine Rosen
At first. That first blew up.
- [65:17]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right.
- [65:17]
Christine Rosen
Well, Christine, what you're talking about, the objectivity fight first blew up at the Washington Post and then made its way to the New York Times and then somehow became a thing. That objectivity itself is bad. I mean, it didn't even start on the fringes. It started in the biggest newspapers in America.
- [65:33]
Jon Pod Horowitz
By the way, the person who, who made the argument that objectivity was essentially a white supremacist. Yes. Was a white. Was an article of white supremacy has been cashiered despite his winning a Pulitzer Prize at the age of 11 by apparently extraordinarily appalling personal behavior in newsrooms and things like that. So congratulations to everybody who followed Wesley Lowery's sterling example of denying the importance of actually telling your readers true things that they needed to know, even if those things were manifestly uncomfortable. John Andrasik, let me ask you, are you performing this summer? I'm dropping this on you because we never advance this. People can come see you or they just. How much? I would say they should go to Spotify and listen to five for fighting, but I think you probably get like 1-700th of a cent if they press a button and play 100 years. I don't know. Is that, Is that how you make your living these days? In part. Do you get. Does Spotify supply you with sufficient listenership?
- [66:52]
John Andrassic
You know, the, the. Certainly the, the income streams in the music industry has dried up, but I'm lucky enough to have a few songs that, you know, that you hear every Thanksgiving on, you know, the Blind side or something that do. Okay. But, yeah, we're always on the road. I just finished a string quartet tour. I'll be going out with my rock band this summer and in the string quartet again in October. I'll actually be performing and speaking at the Republican Jewish convention in October 31 and November 1 in Vegas and be doing a lot of stuff, kind of for my Jewish friends and collaborations. And maybe there's. I've been mulling a song called don't send your kids to Harvard. We'll see if that ever gets to the light of day. But.
- [67:41]
Christine Rosen
But I will say, by the way, if you. If you do go get a chance to go see John play the tour that you guys just wrapped up, that was the most wholesome rock show I think I've ever been to. There was. There was something. Your. Your daughter's folk duet opened. Their family was there at one point. John Roberts of Fox played the solo on Bohemian Rhapsody, you know, with the string quartet behind him. Joni Ernst, the senator sang a beautiful duet with you on. There was something just incredibly wholesome about. I've brought my son to concerts before, by the way, and I usually get side eye because they're usually like punk rock shows and people are like, what, are you dragging a kid to this?
- [68:29]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I'm giving you side eye.
- [68:30]
Christine Rosen
That one, too. What?
- [68:32]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I'm giving you side eye right now.
- [68:35]
Abe Greenwald
I'm not. I'm giving you an admiral. But it was admiring.
- [68:39]
Christine Rosen
Your shows are so warm. There's such a warmth, you know, to your shows that people really should check it out whenever they get a chance.
- [68:46]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So for them to do that, you have a website that has your tour dates and things like that?
- [68:51]
John Andrassic
Yeah. Five for fighting.com, john Andrassic, Twitter. Five for fighting music. Can I tell before I go, can I tell one last story about Israel? Kind of please to leave on a note that I love to tell, of course, for folks. Listen, I'm not Jewish, but I feel that I have been adopted in the last 16 months, which. Which I kind of love. You know, I've been changed by what's going on. And I went to Israel last April and to meet with hostages, ended up performing at Hostage Square. And turned out it was the night of the first Iran attack. And I'd never heard an announcement before a concert like I heard that night. I've done thousands of concerts, and the announcement was, in event of missile attack, please find shelter and take cover. And There was about 5,000 people there and not one person left. I wanted to run to my hotel, hide under my bed. Not one person left. So I play. I play Superman. I play. Okay, I say some words. It's very heavy. All the hostages and families are there. It was. It really reminded me of the concert for New York. I thought I could never have an experience like that again. It did people holding signs of their loved ones 10ft in front of me. And I walked off stage. And the leader of the hostage forum, Rebecca, said, hey, John, by the way, you need to be in a Safe room by 11 o' clock. I'm like, oh, really? I said, you need me to stay from about 11 o' clock? And it was about 8:30. So I walk off stage and my entourage is there. Aviva Klompus and David Hershot from ajc, David Azulai, who does all the rock shows in America. And I said, you guys heard rock? Like, yeah, we heard. I go, all right, let's go to the hotel. Let's go to the hotel. And they said, but, John, we have a dinner reservation. I'm like, yeah, how. You're pretty funny. No, we have a dinner reservation. Okay, you guys understand Iran's bombing in two and a half hours. It took me two weeks to get this dinner reservation. And I'm like, you guys are nuts. So we agreed to go to the hotel. So we're at the hotel, the Sheraton and Tel Aviv, and everybody's having dinner, and it's now 10:30, and I have my son with me, 24 years old. My wife's freaking out. So it's 10:30. I go, all right, guys, I'm going to the safe room. I go up to the safe room, and they're like, okay, we'll see you up there. 11 o' clock, Iran launches the first drone. I call down, hey, guys, you heard? They announced that. They announced it. They launched the drones. Those drones take eight hours to get here. Come on down. We're doing mojitos, you know? And so that's who the Israeli people are. The next day, after the attack, people are playing volleyball on the beach. I won the ocean got stung by a jelly. Jellyfish. The Israeli people have this ability, this resilience to find joy and live life in the darkest of times. And that is what I brought back, and that is what I've been inspired by. And it's not just me. I think the world and Israel is saving the world. And I'm not exaggerating. And that, to me, gives me so much energy. And the fact that Donald Trump is. Is somebody who's supporting them. We don't have Anthony Blinken saying, if Israel doesn't change their ways, they're indistinguishable from Hamas. That gives me hope and pride. And the fact that we are on the precipice of an incredible, historic victory. If we can get there, I am hopeful and excited about the world in a way I've not been probably in 20 years. So I wanted to leave us on a note of optimism. And for all the Jewish friends out there who listen, who feel abandoned, they're not. The world has your back. I have your back. We love you and we thank you. We thank you for being the bright light in this strange planet.
- [72:37]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Well, thank you so much, John Andrasik, and for Christine, Seth and Abe of John Pot words keep the candle burning.