Hamas, Campus Anti-Semites, and Ukraine

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "Hamas, Campus Anti-Semites, and Ukraine" – Summary

Release Date: March 6, 2025
Host: John Podhoretz
Contributors: Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, Matthew Continetti, and an Unnamed Speaker

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Introduction

In this episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast, host John Podhoretz engages with his panelists—Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, Matthew Continetti, and an unnamed speaker—to delve into pressing contemporary issues surrounding Hamas, campus anti-Semitism, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The conversation navigates through political scandals, domestic social tensions, and international diplomacy, providing a multifaceted analysis of each topic.

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Hunter Biden's Art Sales Decline

Key Discussion Points:

• Financial Struggles: The panel discusses recent revelations from Playbook indicating that Hunter Biden has become financially strained, struggling to sell his paintings.
• Comparative Analysis: John Podhoretz draws parallels between Hunter Biden and historical figures like Vincent van Gogh and Emily Dickinson, emphasizing how even renowned artists can face financial hardships.

Notable Quote:

"Isn't that funny that he could sell 27 of those ridiculous paintings when his father was the president and possibly running for reelection. And as soon as that changed, he can't sell another one. I don't understand it."
— Unnamed Speaker [03:00]

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Trump's Negotiation with Hamas

Key Discussion Points:

• Direct Negotiations: The episode explores former President Donald Trump's unprecedented move to negotiate directly with Hamas, breaking traditional diplomatic protocols.
• Implications for Israel and Hostages: The panel analyzes Trump's ultimatum for Hamas to release hostages within a set timeframe or face severe repercussions, discussing the potential impact on both Hamas and Israeli leadership, particularly Netanyahu.
• Strategic Messaging: Discussion on how Trump's rhetoric serves as a double message to both Hamas and Gazan citizens holding hostages.

Notable Quotes:

"Hamas is scared, then Witkoff goes to them and says, okay, we're negotiating the terms. You all come out of a hole. You'll go through the Philadelphia corridor and into Egypt or something like that, and you're out."
— John Podhoretz [05:48]

"Trump is, he's just forcing him to accept whatever Trump and Putin have come together to impose on him. That's not really bringing that to the table."
— Unnamed Speaker [56:38]

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Campus Anti-Semitism and Government Response

Key Discussion Points:

• Rise in Campus Incidents: The panel addresses the surge in anti-Semitic behaviors on university campuses, citing specific incidents at institutions like Columbia, Barnard, and Ohio State.
• Government Action: Examination of the Trump administration's efforts to tackle campus anti-Semitism through executive orders and potential dismantling of the Department of Education.
• Legislative Challenges: Discussion on the necessity of Congressional involvement in dismantling federal departments and the political ramifications of targeting university endowments for taxation.

Notable Quotes:

"There's a lot of signaling in how these policies are being rolled out, and the signaling is ugly."
— Abe Greenwald [55:07]

"It is a growth area. It is an exploitation opportunity."
— John Podhoretz [40:00]

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Department of Education Dismantling

Key Discussion Points:

• Administration's Approach: Contrasting Trump's meticulous planning with Elon Musk's more chaotic methods in attempting to dissolve the Department of Education.
• Policy Implications: Potential redistribution of the department's functions to other agencies and the long-term impacts on educational policies and anti-Semitism initiatives on campus.
• Political Strategy: The administration's maneuver to weaken educational oversight as part of a broader culture war strategy.

Notable Quotes:

"Trump is like the opposite of a surgeon. And clearly Musk is the opposite of a surgeon when it comes to these sorts of things."
— John Podhoretz [46:11]

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Ukraine Conflict and U.S. Involvement

Key Discussion Points:

• Trump's Peace Initiatives: Analysis of Trump's attempts to mediate the Ukraine conflict through direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming for a mineral deal.
• Intelligence Sharing: Discussion on the implications of the Trump administration's decision to halt intelligence sharing with Ukraine and its reliance on allies within the Five Eyes alliance.
• Domestic Impact: Consideration of how Trump's foreign policy shifts, including the potential deportation of Ukrainian refugees, intersect with domestic issues like anti-Semitism on campuses.

Notable Quotes:

"We're not going to be giving Ukraine any more money. We're going to be deporting 250,000 Ukrainians into a war zone, which he says is just such a terrible place that no one should ever be, should live there."
— John Podhoretz [62:02]

"Trump will just wash his hands of the conflict and say, we're not giving Ukraine any more money."
— Unnamed Speaker [62:15]

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Concluding Remarks

The panel concludes by reflecting on the interconnectedness of domestic and international policies, emphasizing the administration's focus on leveraging media narratives to sustain political influence. They also pay homage to historian Martin E. Marty, highlighting his contributions to American religious history.

Notable Quote:

"We will be back tomorrow. For Matt, Christine and Abe, I'm John Pod Horiz, keep the camel."
— John Podhoretz [66:36]

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Summary

This episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast offers a critical examination of the Trump administration's multifaceted strategies in both domestic and international arenas. From scrutinizing Hunter Biden's financial woes to analyzing aggressive diplomatic maneuvers with Hamas and reworking educational policies to combat campus anti-Semitism, the podcast provides listeners with a comprehensive overview of the current political landscape. The nuanced discussions underscore the complexities and consequences of intertwining political agendas with societal issues.

Transcript

[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

ABC Sunday, American Idol returns.

[John Podhoretz]

Give it your all. Good luck. Come out with a golden ticket. Let's hear it.

[Christine Rosen]

This is immense world.

[Matthew Continetti]

I've never seen anything like it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And a new chapter begins.

[Matthew Continetti]

You're going to Hollywood.

[Abe Greenwald]

Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant and Ryan Seacrest on American idol. Season premieres Sunday, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[John Podhoretz]

Hope for the best, expect the wor Some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hope for the best, Expect the worst for the best.

[John Podhoretz]

Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Thursday, March 6, 2025. I'm John Pod Horiz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Hi, John. And I would just like to begin today with this breaking news. Hunter Biden is broke. This was in playbook this morning, March 6, detailing a grim situation, according to Playbook, in a court filing just yesterday saying that Hunter Biden has struggled to sell his paintings in recent months, moving only one painting in the past 14 months compared with 27 in the priority two or three years now. Isn't that funny that he could sell 27 of those ridiculous paintings when his father was the president and possibly running for reelection. And as soon as that changed, he can't sell another one. I don't understand it. I mean, the art is still great.

[John Podhoretz]

Vincent van Gogh, I believe, sold two paintings in his lifetime. Emily Dickinson published only three poems in her lifetime. Sometimes the great artists of our era go unrecognized. Yes. Or perhaps they are momentarily recognized due to some fluke in the.

[Matthew Continetti]

Okay, but Emily Dickinson didn't require a federal pardon, so I'm sort of he, you know, he also is asking a judge to dismiss a case that he brought against someone for claiming that the laptop was real. He. He's in some dire legal straits, but he really ought to probably find A different PR person. Because the American public would, like, pay.

[John Podhoretz]

A PR person obviously has no money. PR people cost.

[Matthew Continetti]

Where's all the money that he. That he made as a consultant? This is.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I just. I'm fascinated by the art. Well, art has always been the story for me. Biden is elected president in 2020. All of a sudden, a new artist appears on the scene. Hunter Biden, with these glass acrylic sculpture, things that are abstract and it's remarkable. And he's selling all these artworks. No one knows why. Why could he. Why is he selling these artworks? Could it be that his father is the president in the United States and the family business is trading money for access? I don't know.

[John Podhoretz]

I. I don't find Hunter Biden impressive in any way, shape, or form, except for this. This was a genius play, right? This was. I mean, he really did innovate a method of selling influence and access and that kind of thing that happens around presidents and has always happened around presidents where friends of the president want to ensure his economic security both during and after the time that they're in office and do things like sell them the house for a dollar. Nixon had a. Presidents who are not themselves wealthy have these kitchen cabinets and people who kind of arrange for their financial security. And this, I think, was probably that kind of thing. But it was provided this hilarious cover with the aesthetic gifts of the person that we really only knew, either to have a crack pipe in his mouth from the photo off the laptop or, you know, shaking down Chinese businessmen with his friends Tony and. Who was the other guy and his. And his uncle. And so he had figured out a kind of liquid, illiquid method of making himself an asset that wasn't just a business hire. That's why it was so clever.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think it's cleverer than that, because.

[John Podhoretz]

Cleverer than that. There's our new slogan.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, I don't think the art is that bad. I think it's actually. It's, like, kind of skillful and very varied in, like, style. I also don't think he did any of it. That's my.

[John Podhoretz]

That is clear. Okay.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's. Yes. Well, it's the workshop. It's the Hunter Biden factory, where his minions actually create his conceptions into reality.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, or what we call the school of Biden.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The school of Biden, Yeah.

[John Podhoretz]

Because, you know, of course, there was the school of Rembrandt when you had these great artists who were city artists, you know, in the late Renaissance and in the early modern period, who had more commissions than they knew what to do with. They would have students execute works of art in their style. And those works of art over time have been, have gone through the process of being authenticated either as a work of Rembrandt.

[Matthew Continetti]

He's more the Salvador Dali. Right. He signs a blank canvas and lets somebody else just paint it.

[John Podhoretz]

Tapes a banana to the canvas. Was that great $6 million work of art, the tape banana. But I think this is a version of something that happened in the 1980s until it came to a screeching halt with the defenestration and the humiliation of speaker of the House Jim Wright, who his method of enriching himself in office, without seeming to enrich himself in office was to publish a ghost written book and then have people buy thousands of copies of the book. Then he publish it with a reputable publishing house and then collect royalties off the book. And then when it became clear just how transactional this was, Wright's career was over. He was one of the three most powerful men in Washington.

[Unnamed Speaker]

There are many different varieties of graft in the storied history of the United States of America. Possibly you could create your own cryptocurrency, say on the eve of becoming the 47th President of the United States and launching a crypto reserve where the crypto, for example, for example, for the crypto czar happens to be heavily invested in several of the currencies in the reserve. Yes, you know, the possibilities are endless in America.

[John Podhoretz]

Interestingly enough, it was of course, Andrew Jackson, the supposed predecessor, precursor, populist precursor to Donald Trump, the man that he most closely resembles, who had exactly this fear about the creation of the American currency, which is that rich people would figure out a way to kind of dominate and own and control the currency. That turned out not to be the case in the United States. The currency wasn't really manipulated at any point in our history. And now we are apparently going to empower the creation of a second currency alongside the dollar. That sure can be manipulated. You just have to. The only difference between that kind of thing is that there's a ledger somewhere that keeps track of all the transactions.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I do think, though, one advantage with the crypto reserve is that I speak for many Americans. I believe that when I hear the word cryptocurrency, my mind goes completely blank and I, I scurry towards some topic that I, that I can, I can grasp, like, you know, the March Madness tournament.

[John Podhoretz]

But crypto is a bad word. This is the whole thing, like, I'm sorry, it's self defeating. Or it has this crypto fascist.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, this is not.

[John Podhoretz]

Crypto means fake. Right. Crypto means something that seems genuine but is ersatz. That's what. Or it refers either to Superman's dog, soon to be seen in the next Superman movie that's with a K, though.

[Matthew Continetti]

Not a C. Right.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay. Or it's the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt. So it's not a good word. The word crypto or the term crypto does not associate itself very positively, which is why they constantly want to talk about it as a coin or whatever. You know, they know that crypto is blockchain. Blockchain, yes, exactly. Okay.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So sorry to divert us.

[John Podhoretz]

Very sorry that Hunter Biden has put himself in this. In these financial straits. He does, after all, have at least five children to support. And I don't think that that count is necessarily entirely accurate, but who knows? And he's just an upstanding citizen who's, you know, give him a break. He's a kid. He's a decade older than our friend Matt Continetti, and I think he's a year older than our friend Abe. But he's a kid, and you don't go after a kid. A president's kid. It's just not cricket. That's not correct.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So I also have another update. At the end of yesterday's episode, you asked me to watch Alyssa Slotkin's response to the State of the Union address, which you apparently believe is the equivalent of the I have a Dream speech I delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. At the March on Washington in August 1963. But nonetheless, I did watch it. I did watch it. And I. I agree. Her delivery was, I'd say, above average for State of the Union rebuttals. However, the content, I thought, was not persuasive at all. And I actually think it's nice to put Slotkin and Hunter Biden together in.

[John Podhoretz]

This sense, which is poor Alyssa Slotkin.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Sorry, Alyssa, but where were you for four years all of a sudden? Oh, with this inflation, what are we doing about prices? Well, that wasn't the tune the Democrats were singing for four years. Or the border. The same thing. We really want and demand secure borders. Well, you know what? Trump has shown that the president could have closed the border at any time since spring of 2021. That is one of the lessons of this first six weeks. And on foreign policy, for sure, there are significant differences. But I think that's revealing as well, in that when I listen to Alyssa Slotkin, she sounds like a kind of national security Republican from about 25 years ago. And I have deep sympathy with that point of view. At the same time, politically, not the best saleable point of view. That worldview was kind of rejected repeatedly by the electorate. And so I think this puts the Democrats again in a weakened position in the spring of 2025. Even if her delivery, yes, it was better than Marco Rubio reaching for the glass of water or speaking from the kitchen.

[Matthew Continetti]

I actually, I sort of liked that she sounded like an earnest special guest speaker brought into your high school civics class for a little while. It's like, oh, I like that. I sort of like the tone. I like the whole look. Um, but the contrast with how the Democrats themselves behaved and I mean, look, Trump was fairly unhinged in, during many moments of that speech, but their behavior contrasted with the official response is very disconcerting because the Democratic Party needs to figure out which, which lane it's going to be in here. Is it going to be the, you know, T shirt wearing sign waving pink be clad resistance again or is it going to be Slotkin trying to find that middle because they haven't decided what they're going to do yet and that, that schizophrenic approach is going to continue to confuse voters.

[John Podhoretz]

I don't even think that there is a question here. Let's say that Slotkin and Fetterman, I mean Fetterman's the real deal and Slotkin may just be.

[Matthew Continetti]

Except he voted against the no Men and Women's Sports Act. We'll continue to point that out.

[John Podhoretz]

But, but I mean Fetterman is a genuine iconoclast. Let's just say for the most part you're not going to be on the.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Board and are in Israel. And by the way, Israel I don't think came up in Slotkins talk and we know that she has very complicated views on that subject because of the state where she comes from.

[John Podhoretz]

That is an important point. Elisa Slotkin herself Jewish, though interestingly enough the family fortune made. Here's a great detail for you. Because her family invented ballpark franks and sold them at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. And it was decided that the ballpark frank was the most delicious of all the franks available in Major League. And they began exporting the ballpark, the ballpark frank to other ballparks and then it became its own thing. So she's Jewish, made a non kosher product, got very rich or her family got rich. And yes, didn't, didn't mention Israel, which we're going to get to In a minute. But I don't think there's any question that the T shirt wearing sign holding upping AOC ing Pocahontas, screaming with a cane. Screaming, screaming with a cane is the party. Like, there may be an effort made, as was made in the 1970s by people like my parents and others to try to open a lane to save the party from its going down this path toward madness that was reversed in the 70s by Watergate. So the party got kind of ectopic life after losing 25 by 25 points in 1972 to Richard Nixon. But you know, there were people who were saying, don't go this way. Don't talk favorably at the North Vietnamese, don't praise cripples, don't, you know, don't go soft on crime, deal with social disorder, don't be friends to drug, you know, don't like, don't market drug use culturally and all of that. And it didn't work. And so people eventually had to either move to the left or move to the right like there was no place in the center once all that was done. And I think you're going to find that too with, I mean, if you had to bet, would the candidate in 2028 for the Democratic Party be an Alyssa Slotkin or will it be an Alexandria Ocasio Cortez? And you would be nuts to bet on Alyssa Slotkin whether or not she got.

[Matthew Continetti]

I think that depends on three more years of second term Trump, to be honest.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, it does, but. No, but the worst Trump does. Okay, here's the thing. Either the worst Trump does the stronger AOC and that wing will get because Trump's efforts will be self defeating. The stronger Trump gets the idea that the party needs to present a contrast, not, you know, can't. It can't out Trump. Trump means they'll have a Mondale or what? I know Trump isn't going to be the candidate in 2028, but you know, you know what I'm saying, Like there's a, there's a either path. Does not, would not seem to lead inexorably. Go ahead.

[Abe Greenwald]

I just think Trump's presence for four years will drive them more toward the fringe. I mean, whether he does good things or bad things, he'll do Trump things, which will make them more like they were.

[John Podhoretz]

And you'll have JD Vance being a mini Trump and you'll have Elon Musk or whoever succeeds Elon Musk as the villain of the month when Musk goes back to his actual profession and somebody else will arise Kash Patel or some assistant secretary.

[Abe Greenwald]

It's like they have a counter squad to contend with now.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, exactly. So. But I do want to say one thing to all of you and to our listeners, and that is shalom, Hamas. Donald Trump did something extraordinary yesterday, and it was interesting because there was a lot of talk in sort of pro Israel circles distress yesterday, Wednesday in the morning and after the joint address to Congress that Trump had soft pedal or had done very little to talk about the hostages on the war in Gaza. And then news stories started emerging that there was talk that we were putting pressure on Israel to negotiate directly with Hamas. One sentence statement from Bibi Netanyahu's office said, we have made clear our views on negotiating directly with Hamas. That's all. That's all that was said. And we did learn later in the day that the United States, in a break with most protocol, though not all, is negotiating directly with. With Hamas. That's. Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

Can we spend a minute on that? Because if someone from the Biden administration was doing that, we would be, I think, have pretty strong opinions. What, what do we generally is that. I understand Trump is the disruptor of all things previously considered diplomacy, but why is he talking directly to Hamas? Why is this administration.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, so if you take what Witkoff is doing together with Trump's meeting with the hostages and the statement that he made after, I don't think, I think you have to put them together. If we were negotiating with Hamas with no preconditions, or we were negotiating with Hamas with no firm view to go in except what sort of like if we're negotiating with them the way we seem to want to negotiate with Russia over Ukraine, that would be terrible. If Wyckoff is saying, you know what, this whole thing where we're waiting for gutter to talk to Hamas and it takes three days for them to get the carrier pigeon with a response and all of that, I'm done with that. We're going to them and we're saying, you get all the hostages out or we are unleashing the Israelis on you and you're all dead. Is that a bad negotiation? No. If that's the negotiation, that's the negotiation. If they're offering Hamas, what Trump did in the truth within the truth social statement was say all the hostages and the bodies out now or you're all dead. You want to live, you'll do this. You don't, we are letting the Israelis loose on your ass and that's it. There's no middle ground. So do you think he spoke to.

[Matthew Continetti]

Netanyahu before he, before we started this direct negotiation with Hamas. That was the question I had. Was this something the Israelis knew about or, I mean, we, we don't know.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Trump negotiated with the Taliban.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, he doesn't care. He was going to have the Taliban. He had the Taliban come to camp.

[Unnamed Speaker]

David on 9 11.

[Abe Greenwald]

You know, one detail about the truth to Hamas, John, something you had said when Trump called Zelensky a dictator was that, well, what happens when you really have to call a dictator a dictator now, doesn't it? It's, it sort of waters it down. It's, it sucks it of meaning. When he called Hamas sick and twisted yesterday, actually thought, well, that would be nice if he didn't expend words like dictator on people like Zelenskyy. Actually, it was rhetoric. It's a small point. Rhetorically less effective because he throws things around. He throws terms and insults around.

[Christine Rosen]

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[John Podhoretz]

Terms and the insults I think here are less, less, less important. The question is what happens now policy wise? Which is to say, Trump just said enough, we're done. You let everybody out, including the, including the dead bodies. What kind of sick and twisted people hold people's bodies anyway? What's the matter with you? He said, Hamas, basically, I'm throwing you a lifeline for your own individual survival. And interestingly enough, sent a message to Gazans who might be holding hostages in their homes privately. Because he said, let them go or you're all dead too, basically. So it was a double message to Hamas, to other groups in Gaza if there are other groups in Gaza holding hostages, and to private citizens who have been given these hostages to house. That's a new thing because it's specific. It's not just you let everybody go or we'll unleash hell. He's like, I'm telling you right now, we'll find you. Maybe we'll find you a way that we can let you live. And I'm also intrigued by the fact that there are still Hamas leaders living in the four Seasons in Doha. Maybe they've left or they're somewhere else. Israel knows who, where every single one of those people is. Don't be fooled. Like if they can take somebody out in the middle of Tehran, they know where the Hamas political leadership that is not in country. Right? The only real major leader of Hamas that is still on site is Yahya Sinwar's brother. They just eliminated the head of Hamas in the West Bank, Israel. I think Trump's message is, you're also not safe guy in the hotel suite. Remember, this is Israel. They spent three years going after every single person who committed the atrocity of the Israeli athlete slaughter in Munich. They have a history of making sure that everybody understands that if you engage in this war, there is a target on your back for the rest of your life. And they're really good at executing that. So if Hamas is scared, then Witkoff goes to them and says, okay, we're negotiating the terms. You all come out of a hole. You'll go through the. Go through the Philadelphia corridor and into Egypt or something like that, and you're out. You and whoever else, and all the hostages are coming first. And we're not even negotiating. That's not even a negotiation. That's sort of what Trump was saying. The problem now is, is there a timetable? And the person who has to put the timetable on it, which is a Hobson's choice, is Netanyahu. Netanyahu. Building on what Trump said, we want all the hostages out in 96 hours or we go. Because if there isn't a timetable, then Hamas can drag this out, right? Not respond, say they want another meeting, whatever. And that's high risk, high stakes for Bibi and for the hostages, obviously. I think it's very clear that anybody who believes at this point that, you know, Bibi wants the hostages to remain hostage because it's helping him politically or whatever, he is as tormented as everybody else is in Israel. He wants the hostages home. It has torn the country asunder. The release of the hostages over the last month has only whetted the emotional appetite of Israelis to say, they're being tortured in there. We have to get them out and we no longer. We don't have the Entebbe option, because when we tried the Entebbe option, the six hostages were murdered just as the Israeli special forces were getting to them in the tunnels. This is the only way we can do it. And on the other hand, he also has to destroy Hamas and finish this war. So at some point, and he is not a risk taker. This is the great misunderstanding of Bibi Netanyahu. He is not a risk taker. He is a very prudent, calculating, and somewhat timid person where these kinds of showdowns comes. But Trump has put this in his court. He has to say, date certain or we're moving, because America's not gonna move. This is not an American project. The military response is an Israeli project solely.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Hasn't this been Trump's message for a while now though? We have the Maragaza plan, right? We have the Hamas. All hell will break loose if you don't get with hostage release. Now we have Shalom, Hamas, it's time to go. Release the hostages or else all hell will break loose. It's a consistent message from Trump that basically he, he hates Hamas, he wants Hamas gone, he wants the hostages free. But then when he's asked about it in follow up, he'll say Israel needs to do what it needs to do.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, there's two, two things like one is that the, that the you're going to let the hostages out or we're going to unleash hell did lead to the three phase plan that got, you know, however many hostages out in exchange for president. So that's before the inauguration and he left it vague as to who was going to unleash hell. Remember when he said unleash hell in the week before the inauguration? He and people said are you saying you're going to do it or Israel's.

[Matthew Continetti]

Going to do it?

[John Podhoretz]

He's like, we're going to unleash hell. He didn't say this is not an American project. He effectively, in this statement and things he said that said Israel's going to go. We are giving Israel everything it needs to wipe you off the face of the earth. That's what the truth said yesterday. We are fully behind Israel in every way to do what it needs to be done. Right? Meaning if Israel says they've got to wipe out Khan Younis and there are civilians there, we're go ahead. If Israel says they have to drop 2,000 pound bombs on Rafah because that's where they think the leadership is, under the, you know, in the tunnels, they can do it, they can do whatever. Israel now has a blank check, but we're not doing it. And that, that's I think clarifying in some way because it also means that the hopes that some of us might have had that Israel and America together were going to launch a kind of multi front raid, right? That Israel and Israel and America might go after the Iranians who are of course the, the puppet masters here, might go after the Iranian nuclear program and the oil platforms because Iran's air defenses have been destroyed and go after the Houthis simultaneously. That's not what we're talking about here. This is about Hamas, Gaza and the hostages and ending that war. And so it's limited, it's focused, and it has one variable, which is when does Israel say enough? Now, if it works, there won't have to be more war. If it works and all the hostages are released, and if Hamas agrees to the Wyckoff terms and leaves Gaza and Israel gets all the hostages back, then essentially phase two and phase three have been met. But he didn't say exchange of prisoners, anything. He's like, hostages or Israel destroys you.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[John Podhoretz]

So it is new. It's new in that, I mean, not that these things, that Trump is a nicety follower or that we should be talmudically studying the difference between this statement and others. He is Trump and he did issue it after meeting the hostages in the Oval Office. And if you've seen the picture of the hostages with Trump, I just think.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It'S important to recognize the continuity here. And also that the kind of the delegation to Netanyahu, that Netanyahu, it's really up to him what he wants to do, and Wyckoff is there trying, I think, primarily to get the American hostages out. That would look very differently in a world where Hunter Biden's art continued to sell at a nice steady clip. And throughout all of the foreign policy debates of the last week, I've just always kept in mind that had the election gone the other way, Israel would now be in the position that Ukraine finds itself in. In fact, it would be an even worse position because Ukraine has Europe and the elite intellectual support behind it, even as the Trump administration is trying to force it to the table. When Israel has no one except the United States and we're with them now.

[Matthew Continetti]

We also, I just want to bring into this there's a domestic component here where Trump, I hope, will do something. There's obviously glimmers of this, which is we're seeing again on campuses like Columbia University, an outbreak of more pro Hamas behavior by students. The president, an effigy of the president was hung yesterday in these areas. And you see these administrators earnestly coming in and saying, you know, I'll need to go home. There was even a bomb threat and they refused to leave. Turned out not to be a real threat. But I wonder, he's got this task force through the Department of Education. At the same time, we have an executive order coming out today, according to the Wall Street Journal, that will lead to calling for the dismantling the Department of Education. But he has been good about the rhetorically on the anti Semitism in campus problem, and he's appointing people who are serious about that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Problem. DOJ just announced an investigation into Berkeley on anti Semitic, on anti Semitism, the whole UCLA system.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah.

[John Podhoretz]

And the letter was sent to Colombia, to the president of Colombia, saying you have $51 million in contracts with the federal government that might well be canceled. And some. That's. That's that tranche. And then there's kind of like $5 billion that is at risk in some other fashion. I don't quite know what that might be. And there are of course, various things that can be done. One very broad stuff that's very specific, like Title 6 violations of the civil rights of Jewish students to go to class and to be free of harassment.

[Matthew Continetti]

We just already filed under that statute.

[John Podhoretz]

Another incident last night at Ohio State, at the Hillel at Ohio State, which I don't know where that. Whether that is geographically considered part of campus or not. Some Hillels are on campus, some Hillels are not on campus. And where it is geographically, it would matter for the Title 6 action against the university for not. Not intervening. Yesterday, Barnard, because of a bomb threat, did clear out a sort of an internal encampment at the library, but let. Arrested two people and let 40 or 50 just walk out without being booked or having their photographs taken or anything like that, which could then be seen as a, you know, as a. Could be used in testimony, not in civil cases. And in other cases that they did not take this serious. Then there's the really big thing, which is a big thing in general, which is the question of whether or not this is used as a wedge to say that tax policy needs to be changed and that the endowments of these schools need to be subject to taxation, that they're no longer treated as nonprofits, that they're all hedge funds and that they are hoarding money and that their behavior is no longer. We no longer see them as requiring. Requiring the protection of the nonprofit status that they have in terms of taxation now that, that you couldn't do it simply and solely as a. And you shouldn't, because politically, I think it would be a killer issue, to be honest, to say, you know, Harvard's got $50 billion, Yale's got $35 billion, Columbia has $17 billion or something like that. These schools all over the place, all total, you know, 200, $250 billion in untaxed, you know, whatever. And so that's done. Like, you're just not.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Republicans are going to be searching for revenue as they build out the one big beautiful bill. And we've already spoken about kind of the political dangers of cutting too much from Medicaid growth in the years ahead. So why not revisit the tax on endowments, which was part of the 2017 tax cut bill and raised revenue in order to get a higher standard deduction for most Americans?

[John Podhoretz]

Right. So there I think you have a kind of two front battle, because what is the story this week? Suddenly there are protests everywhere again, Columbia, Barnard, Ohio State. Last week it started there, too. There are people I know who think that this was essentially engineered by whoever is engineering this stuff abroad as a means of shifting focus away from the B bus, the horrors visited upon.

[Matthew Continetti]

There's another data point to mention here, which is that the lawsuit against CARE CAIR that was brought by a former CARE employee, which was going to require under discovery that they disclose their financing from abroad, they settled that lawsuit before it could get to discovery, which was which was not surprising, but also was going to open up a whole lot of information about where these organizations are funded.

[John Podhoretz]

And that, by the way, is also a very big issue. It's Danielle Pletka, your colleague at AEI wrote a big piece for us last June, July, August, about how to confront methods and strategies for confronting anti Semitism in the United States. And one big issue is exactly that that money is going to NGOs and nonprofits that are likely illegal and coming from abroad, and that there's very little enforcement mechanism in the tax law to deal with this kind of thing. And that you can, though, if you're really willing to go at it. Private lawsuits are a way to wedge your way in, like the one that you mentioned. But that's another front in which treasury and, you know, the Foreign Agent Registration act that has been used, was used against Trump people so freely in the first administration. All that there are various modalities that could be used to use the anti Semitism and the behavior, the treatment of Jewish students on campus and the treatment of these matters as another element in the culture war. But I believe if you did polling on it, which I don't think people do, because it's too isolated an issue. But remember, people were talking about the Trump speech and the idiocy and derangement of the Democrats on Tuesday night, because what he was pressing when there was applause and all that Democrats weren't applauding are issues that are 70 to 80% on his side. And so it wasn't just that he was, you know, demagoguing or doing whatever or being, you know, it was that he was doing so with, with, with gimme issues with like, with with softballs across the plate and that, you know, Democrats were like falling into a trap, not clapping, you know, for a, for the wife of a murdered police officer, for, you know, and for. Or for girls and girls having to play sports against biological males and stuff like that. I think that this probably is pretty close to being an 80, 20 issue if you actually get there. Do you want to universities to harbor and supporters of terrorism against Jews, that kind of thing. You think that's not 80, 20, I'm.

[Abe Greenwald]

Guessing, if that's how it's framed. But that's not how it's framed. It's framed as a free speech issue.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, Americans are really, really concerned about free speech. I'm just saying they don't care about free speech. So I don't know why they would suddenly care about free speech.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But that's an incorrect framing as well. At the end of the day, it's about conduct and behavior and harassment.

[Abe Greenwald]

I agree.

[Unnamed Speaker]

When you present voters with the images and the stories. Yeah, it's 70, 30 Hamilton Hall.

[John Podhoretz]

They're throwing, you know, they're throwing fire extinguishers at cops. There's footage of that. Like, that's not. Oh, that's speech. You know what I mean? I'm just saying he's. They are. They're on. They're on the back foot. Not on every issue.

[Matthew Continetti]

Not. Not on the economy. His. He's the ipsos. Recent ipsos.

[John Podhoretz]

No, no, I'm only referring to this.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean, I'm only.

[John Podhoretz]

Hon. I'm only referring to this. I'm not.

[Matthew Continetti]

Because on Ukraine and on the economy, he's. The American people are actually not with him right now. They're. They're.

[John Podhoretz]

No, only in relation to the question of whether or not there is a. There is running room for him to make major hay and the administration to make major hay out of this domestic matter that affects relatively few people. We're only talking about, like, Jewish students on certain campuses. It's not a mess issue and, you know, Jews are concerned about it, but Jews are not like part of the Trump electoral coalition and all that. But. But it is, I think, a growth area. It is a. It is an exploitation opportunity.

[Matthew Continetti]

But this is why his, his move movement on the department, destroying the Department of Education is important because that's going to distract from even these smaller issues, whether this is possible without getting Congress on board. When Linda McMahon testified for her confirmation hearing, she signaled that Congress would have to be part of this process. But dismantling even ed, which is the smallest agency in the Cabinet is going to be, it's going to be a process that requires, it's going to bring in a lot of litigation. And Trump just had got smacked down by the Supreme Court. The question of what the goal is in destroying, in getting rid of the Department of Education, which has long been a conservative goal, is needs to be articulated a little more clearly by this administration. I haven't, I know that destroying the Department of Education is this, this wonderful campaign thing that, that he ran on, but how that is going to happen in practice and what that will mean for efforts to fight anti Semitism on campus, the Office of Civil Rights's job, all these things are important.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. I mean, I don't think he's destroying the Department of Education. He wants to close it. He wants to create a plan to close it. And the experts that I speak to at AEI say that you can close it. A lot of will happen is that different functions of the department will go elsewhere in the other places. So I don't think that it will necessarily interfere with some of the investigations into campus antisemitism.

[Matthew Continetti]

But Congress has to be on board with this. Like they have. Some of these are statutory, you know.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, well, that's the story of our lives, isn't it? I mean, that's every, that's every aspect of what Trump is doing.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, the problem here with executive.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Power is that eventually Congress will have to become involved.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah. I mean, the problem here is that you're talking about things that need to be done. If you were like looking at the federal government as a, you know, as a, as a body on a surgical table and there were these tumors that you wanted to excise, you need to use a scalpel and not a hatchet. Right. You have to, there, there are sources of their blood supply. You need to make sure cauterized or redirected or something like that. There are, this is true of USAID and other things too. It's like you don't want to not fund pepfar. You don't want to not fund anti malarial things because those do have worldwide global implications for us. Like you don't want there to be a giant outbreak of malaria because there is no way to prevent that from coming across our shores. And so that money is well spent. And, and Rubio is now, of course, now effectively in charge of usaid. So getting the programs that are good while you eliminate the programs that are bad, including at a place that was Department of Education, is a very surgical task. And that's where we have reason to believe that the administration is uniquely ill suited to doing this because Trump is like the opposite of a surgeon. And clearly Musk is the opposite of a surgeon when it comes to these sorts of things. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean, there might be some potential, potential conflict between DOGE and the Trump administration's education team. Closing the Department of Education, as Christine says, has been a goal of the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan's presidency, and.

[John Podhoretz]

Reagan since a year into its creation.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Reagan initiated the process of closing it, but was eventually rebuked by Congress and stopped. So there have been a lot of scholars in the education policy space who have thought about for some time, well, what would this look like? What would we do? Which offices would go elsewhere? Shouldn't DOJ do the civil rights stuff? Right. I mean, so that's one side. Then you have the Doge approach. And the Doge approach, it seems, is the kid shows up and he says, let me see the payment system. And he does search and replace for dei, for gender. It looks at wasteful things and then hits delete. And people scramble and say, oh, hold it. What? You just deleted funds? A hospital somewhere in rural Alabama. Once Elon Musk hears that, he goes, oh, okay, well, we'll fix it. So it's this trial and error, you know, swing with the sledgehammer and then kind of come back and say, oh, no, we didn't. We didn't mean that.

[John Podhoretz]

We'll.

[Unnamed Speaker]

We'll fix that. And that's a very different approach to kind of the reports that have stacked up in piles over 40 years about how to tackle this issue. We don't really know which path this administration will take on education, simply because I do think there are people in the administration who have given a lot of thought to how to create the plan to shut it down. But you also have the Muscovites who are kind of, okay, fine, we'll just come in and we'll just start hitting that delete button as we go through the invoice system. It's a very different approach, but they.

[Matthew Continetti]

Also need to enlist. Then what? The Trump administration. The one missing piece, it seems to me, particularly for something like education or some of the other agencies, is enlisting some red state elected congressmen and senators in the process so that they can be invested in what is going to be eliminated and what is necessary and can alert them before they come in with a chainsaw that, oh, hey, actually, that rural hospital in my district, really important. Gets me reelected every two or six years.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's not the muscle. Musk's way, the Musk way is let's knock over the anthill. And then when we figure out, oh, we needed this little part of the anthill, we'll rebuild it. Musk was on Capitol Hill yesterday, as was I. You know, it was a similar pageantry that greeted us both when I was at the Capitol.

[John Podhoretz]

But yeah, but you were wearing a tie. I know that because yesterday on the podcast you were wearing a tie. Very nicely knotted tie, I just want to point out. So I hope everybody on Capitol, he.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Wore a tie to the joint session, which I thought was actually kind of a rebuke to Zelensky. I think that's what he was doing there. But nonetheless, I was wearing a tie. He was on Capitol Hill. And I think what he was doing was trying to assure Christine, the Republicans in the Senate and the House that, look, come to me when, when you have an issue and we, and we'll try to fix it. I mean, all of this is against the backdrop of this is not how government has ever worked before. So it is, you're right to point out, very kind of revolutionary and disturbing in a lot of respects.

[John Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

Well, I mean, I think there's an ugliness that's an undeniable ugliness running through the Trump administration's approach to Ukraine, no matter what. I mean, he can read Zelensky's letter and say, see, it's great and this. But not sharing intelligence.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, that's the big thing I forgot to mention is so they announced they were no longer going to share intelligence with Ukraine and then a hotel got that. Maybe a Ukrainian drone could have intercepted the missile that Russia fired that blew up a hotel.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But can I point something out about that? There was a very interesting quote by Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania that I read this morning. Representative Fitzpatrick's a supporter of Ukraine. He noted that the lack of intelligence sharing, while below may be more bark than bite because it doesn't limit our allies from sharing intelligence. And under five eyes, our intelligence is their intelligence as well.

[John Podhoretz]

Can you explain to me what for now.

[Matthew Continetti]

For now, wouldn't this suggest that we. I mean.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, that's right, for now. If our intelligence, through the system that we share with our allies, including the Great Britain in the United Kingdom, which is very supportive of Ukraine, there's no. They know what we know. And so there's no barrier. Obviously, we have no control over the United Kingdom from sharing that intelligence with the Ukrainians as well. And that's Brian Fitzpatrick. He's, I think, a very esteemed congressman. And I thought that was interesting. So I'm just pointing out that some of these moves are a kind of, I'm not going to say Kabuki theater, but it's a lot of signaling.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, but the signaling is ugly.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And the signaling is to bring Ukraine to the table, to bring them to heel, to get them to the table. And once that happens, then maybe some of these signals will be different.

[John Podhoretz]

But it hasn't happened yet, really, to bring them to the table because he doesn't want them at the table. He wants. Wants to negotiate a deal with Putin. Right. And then say to Ukraine, here is what now happens to your country. You're not even gonna, you're not even involved in the details.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But don't you think in order to. Or to negotiate a deal with Putin, he needs Ukraine to accept what he's going to do?

[John Podhoretz]

Well, that's what I think. What? All of this.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's the problem. Zelenskyy won't accept what he wants to do. It seems now that Zelenskyy is moving toward accepting what Donald Trump wants to do. When that happens, then I think they'll be more on the same page and we might see some difference in the Trump approach to Ukraine.

[John Podhoretz]

Why? Why would we see a difference? He will have gotten what he wanted. He will have strong armed Zelenskyy into capitulation and surrender. What then does he do for Zelenskyy? He will have won. He wants the war to stop.

[Unnamed Speaker]

What's the surrender to? These moves are to get him to sign the mineral deal. Then it's a whole new ballgame.

[John Podhoretz]

Oh, you're just talking about the mineral deal.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You're not about the mineral deal.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, I thought you were Zelensky won't.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Sign the mineral deal.

[Abe Greenwald]

I thought you were talking about the.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, I'm sorry, Abe and I both missed that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The mineral deal is part of the peace initiative. It's all sequenced here. And Zelensky won't sign the mineral deal without guarantees.

[John Podhoretz]

Right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That he will not get. And so until he recognizes that, and I think he's just beginning to recognize that, that he needs to just sign the deal. So then see what happens next.

[John Podhoretz]

He's.

[Unnamed Speaker]

We're in this limbo.

[Abe Greenwald]

No, no, but, but Zelenskyy has understood for a while now that he may be forced to do this. He's. He said that weeks ago. He said I, he said, I would like guarantees. There are no guarantees in it. If it turns out we have no choice and we're gonna have to. Going to have to sign the deal. It's not like he's not known this. So Trump just, it's one thing to say bringing him to the table, but in truth, he's just forcing him to accept whatever Trump and Putin have come together to impose on him. That's not really bringing that to the table.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I don't think Zelenskyy will either accept what a negotiation happens or he won't. Right now it's about, are you in line with the United States approach to ending the conflict?

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, the American part of that, Trump's approach on Ukraine right now, I mean, I really think, say again, the American people are actually. This is not a majority.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I'm not so sure. Christine, you said that earlier. I think what the American people aren't aligned with is Trump's praise of Vladimir Putin that is polled who's responsible for the war.

[Matthew Continetti]

And most Americans get Russia.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's all Trump's diplomatic attempt with Putin. But Americans do not. I mean, the trend line in support for Ukraine has been down over the past year. And I just, you know, the fact that the. I've always been struck that when Zelensky went to the munitions factory last September in the middle of the election campaign, he was accompanied by a Democratic congressman from that swing district in Pennsylvania. And that congressman lost. So I think actually Trump has the public on his side on the issue of ending the war. Where the public departs is his talk about Putin and the talk about who started the war. And that kind of realist, in my view, false narrative about events. But I do think that there's been.

[John Podhoretz]

Some, if you're right, you mentioned the Brian Fitzpatrick exception. Right. That they can get intelligence from Britain. The five eyes is that is that the leading countries in NATO is, it is just, I think, I think it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Might be Australia too.

[John Podhoretz]

Right? It's like our Anglo total, we have in terms of satellite and stuff like that. We share an immense amount of common information. And since these are other, these are sovereign nations and they, they don't work for us. They, they are able to provide intel, they can do whatever they want to with the intelligence. So effectively Trump can cut them off, but whatever he knows, Britain might know and therefore they can give it to Ukraine. That then raises the interesting question of how serious is Europe about helping the Ukrainians continue fighting the war? And that's what we don't know because there are major noises out of Germany, talk of massive increases in defense spending and things like that, which we also heard at the beginning of the war. And some of that happened and then some of it started to sort of dribble away. But if they, obviously they are going to have to stand up. And then the question is, how committed is Trump to this idea that he wants to be the person to be seen as having ended this useless, pointless war that is neither useless nor pointless since it's actually about preserving the sovereignty of a nation in Europe against a neighbor that invaded it. Nonetheless, that's what he wants. Will he then react to Europe stepping up to help Ukraine? In other words, he's not saying, we don't want to do it because we don't have the money. He's saying, I want to do it because I want to be a peace giver. Won't Europe be betraying his instincts at wonderful peace giving if it steps up and helps Ukraine continue fighting the war?

[Unnamed Speaker]

It's possible. I mean, the other way to read it would be that Trump will just wash his hands of the conflict and say, we're not giving Ukraine any more money. We're not going to give them any more intelligence support. And Europe, it's your problem now.

[John Podhoretz]

So right now that is probably the best that if you are a supporter of Ukraine, you can hope for, I think, because obviously we're not going to be giving Ukraine any more money. We're going to be deporting 250,000 Ukrainians into a war zone, which he says is just such a terrible place that no one should ever be, should live there. And that's why the war needs to end. So why don't we just, just transport a quarter million people into it to see if they could get killed too, kind of.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean, they're not being transported to the front line, John. I mean, Ukraine's a huge country. Russia has been able to hold on to about 20% of it for three years.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, yeah, but you know, they're not doing it. They're not doing it. They're doing it to stick it to Ukrainians because they hate Ukraine. They've gone from the, I think your.

[Unnamed Speaker]

First premise that this is all about ending refugee policy in the United States is probably more likely. It just happens to dovetail with the fact that we've accepted many Ukrainian refugees as we should have.

[Matthew Continetti]

But can I, I just want to pick up again on something Abe said earlier about the sort of cruelty of some of this, at least in the tone and I know everyone hates tone policing but this is where the distinction between the Cold War era where, and Matt, you're right that American support for Ukraine has been on the decline, but there's this weird tension between this idea that if Russia is the aggressor and Russia is not an ally of ours, that Americans are I think correctly suspicious of great powers on other parts of the world, whether it be China or Russia or Iran, making moves that are against our interests and actively, you know, attacking our interests. We tend to have I think common sense Americans, for all of the common sense that Trump's constantly invoking, they have a healthy suspicion of a country like Russia. I think the Trump administration is very, very much doesn't have that suspicion. Everything they talk about is like we're equal partners, we're negotiating. I'm going to, you know, we, we're going to talk to each other. So the cruelty is to feed a very narrow part of the MAGA base and I'm not sure that's sustainable for the average voter who again put Trump back in the White House because of egg prices because they didn't like the Biden stuff.

[John Podhoretz]

So Christine, cuz we are, we are, we're pushing up on the end here so obviously we're not going of resolve, resolve this matter.

[Matthew Continetti]

We still have the international crisis every day.

[John Podhoretz]

I believe had a recommend the other day that I, I, I big footed you on.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, it's a little, it's a little weird and obscure but I, but I think really what a surprise, it's not Japanese fiction. So last week a wonderful historian of American religion named Martin E. Marty died. He was in his 90s. He was an ordained minister. He was just indefatigable in terms of scholarship and public speaking. I read him as a grad student and I just wanted for those who are interested in the history of American religion. His magnum opus was called Pilgrims in Their Own Land. Wonderful book, but about 500 pages, although it is the easier read because the one most of us read was Sidney Ahlstrom's History of Religion in America, which is even bigger and more dense. But he was truly a pluralist in the sense that he looked at all faith and how as a country, we developed around ideas of faith and God, but allowed for a vast range of its expression, the relation of religion to institutions of government, both locally and federally. He just, he was a wonderful writer, a wonderful historian, and he wrote more for the public than a lot of contemporary religious historians do. He also trained a bunch of our contemporary historians, Grant Wacker and others. So if you're interested in a kind of good survey of sort of the history of American religion over the last 500 years. And it's a big book, but I would recommend Pilgrims in Their Own Land by Martin E. Marty. His son wrote a wonderful memorial to him in the Christian century. Just. Just a. Really. Which started. I just want to read the first. The first thing he says is, my relentlessly cheerful father has died, exiting this life with the same confidence and joy with which he lived it. And it just goes on to talk about him as a. As a person and sort of how. How generous he was, even though he was a very busy scholar and writer. And so I just recommend reading anything by Martin E. Marty, but Pilgrims in Their Own Land is a good start.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, he a professor at the University of Chicago for 70 years, some insane number of years. And when I was there, which was 45 years ago, there were maybe four really famous professors at Chicago. Saul Bellow was at Chicago. Antonin Scalia was at the law school. George Stigler was at the business school, and Martin Marty was at the Divinity School. And he was, in terms of campus fame or whatever, or in terms of the kind of the distinguished nature of the. Of the University of Chicago education, he was one of the big four, Big Five. That was the selling point to the school, which is like, you may think that Harvard's better than University of Chicago, but look who we have compared to what they have. Anyway, so. And he. That was 45 years ago. Like, he was a legend even then. Okay, so we will be back tomorrow. For Matt, Christine and Abe, I'm John Vaughn Horowitz. Keep the camel.