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You know when you're shopping online, you want to buy something and you're on a website that you already have a login to but you can't remember the password or you want to buy something. You got your credit card out but you can't remember the three digit number that you got to do at the end of your credit card number and then you got to go find your wallet and it's late and you're tired. Picture this though. Late at night. You're scrolling, you see the product and you know what you see there? You see a purple pay button right there next to the product you want to buy. It has all your information saved. It makes checking out as simple as a simple tap of your screen. 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 the Commentary Magazine podcast to brands just getting started. So for vendors, you got to think about how Shopify will help accelerate your efficiency, whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing ones, and packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines and even enhance your product photography. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their Shop Pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary shopify.com comment. Expect the Worst Some Greek champagne Some
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die at first no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best Expect the worst
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Hope for the Best welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026. I'm John Pod Horiz, the editor of commentary. I have two announcements today. The first is I am officially unveiling the 2026 commentary roast, our annual dinner in New York City on November 8th. This is, I believe our 16th and the roastie this year will be Ron Dermer Roast Ron Dermer, former Ambassador to the United States, former Chief Aide to Bibi Netanyahu. Great guy, fun to rib. You can go to commentary.org roast for more information. That may be commentary.org roast2026 so if roast doesn't work, do roast2026 and you can find out more information. And I'm also happy to report that our first ever subscription offer offered here on the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast has been going gangbusters 1995 for a year of commentary and commentary.org and our archives and the like. This is almost 80% off the off the off the ordinary ticket price and we are very happy to offer it to first time subscribers. So commentary.org offer for the 1995 a year you guys have been lining up to do this in the last two days. Let's keep it going. It's really very heartening, not only for me, but for executive editor Abe Greenwald.
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B
Hi Abe.
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C
Hi John.
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A
Senior editor Seth Mandel.
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B
Hi Seth.
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D
Hi John.
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A
And joining us today, our old pal Poobah at the American Enterprise Institute. Columnist with the free expression vertical at the Wall Street Journal, Matthew Continetti. Hi Matt.
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B
Hi John.
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A
Okay, we have about 50 things to go through today and none of them is good. So we'll choose our poison. How about we start with the American politics because if we start with the war, we'll never get to anything else. So primaries last night, very distressing result, at least in New Jersey where a literal Al Qaeda supporter named Adam Hammawi, a plastic surgeon, has won the Democratic primary in a 11 person field with 28% of the vote in his district. But this is a district that will go Democratic in November and therefore a person who is a supporter of and an apologist for the blind Sheikh, the man who was responsible for the first bombing of the World trade Center in 1993 and was sentenced to life in prison in 1996. This guy's not just like has said some stuff online about, you know, about his previous views on this matter. Literally an intimate of the blind. Shake. It will now be in Congress when Congress is sworn in the next Congress in January of 2027. This is I think the most extreme result we've seen of the polarization period of American politics in the last 20, 25 years. I can't think of a. Al Qaeda attacked the United states and killed 3,000 people and basically inaugurated the last 25 years of American foreign policy and strategy. And somebody who was on their side is going to be in Congress.
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B
It's a really unusual race. And like you say, this is a deep blue district. It's kind of the middle of the state, the middle western part of the state of New Jersey. It's an open seat. The incumbent had been there for 12 years in Congress. And so they had this splintered field. And of all the multi candidates, Hammawi was the one who was able to kind of transcend any communal basis in different townships or whatever or different interest groups and squeak out a win. I'd say on the if there's a Silver lining, John. It's unlikely that his congressional career is going to last very long. I think the specific circumstances of this primary helped push him aside, but that in itself is meaningful about the current state of the Democratic Party and the left. I mean, you have a man with a Nazi tattoo about to win the Senate nomination in Maine, and now you have a sympathizer to Al Qaeda, someone who went overseas to volunteer for a Al Qaeda linked charity that was reported recently, as well as his association with the blind sheikh, the mastermind, or one of the, the spiritual leader, you might say, of the 1993 World Trade center bombing. He's headed to Congress and to just show how so unusual it is next door. So Hamau wins in New Jersey 7. I'm sorry, New Jersey 12. Next door, just north, is New Jersey 7. Now New Jersey 7 is also an interesting district. It's being represented by Representative Tom Keene, who, who no one has seen in months. And I don't know if we're going to get a message or, you know, like, remember when Mark Sanford went missing and his staff put out that he was on the, he was hiking the Appalachian Trail and it turned out he was kind of in the midst of an affair. I don't think that's the case with Congressman Kean. It seems he has some sort of undisclosed medical issue, but he's been absent for months. He's going to face, after last night's Democratic primary, a woman named Rebecca Bennett, who is a former Navy pilot and who's very pro Israel and has stated repeatedly that Israel has a right to defend itself or that we should continue to support Israel. So it just shows you kind of the schizophrenic nature of American politics today that in one community you have them literally nominating an Al Qaeda sympathizer and travel 10 minutes and you have a pro Israel Democrat going up against a missing congressman. So that's New Jersey. And yes, I agree it's not good, it's not good for the state of the Democrats. But I don't know whether we should, you know, say that this means, you know, we're headed toward terrorists, you know, dominating the US Congress.
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D
We, we, it's true that we contain multitudes.
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B
Those of us from New Jersey, you know, Seth, you're the, you're the authority on the guarded state.
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D
Look, I, I mean, I, it's true. And also, I, I, weirdly enough, I actually was born and raised in a red district in New Jersey. So, you know, so things can get, things can get weird there but it's, it's all. I, I think my main concern with Hamau and people like that is, and races like that is the question of whether it helps them to be seen as extreme in the primary, more or less. New Jersey has been trending away from far left ness in recent years. In national campaigns, it's been surprisingly close. There have been rather shocking electoral upsets on the state level here. Here and there, power brokers are finding themselves, you know, no longer being at the top of the food chain in New Jersey, you know, union guys. So things are, things have been changing for what one could say is the better, but at least toward a more mixed politics in New Jersey. And, and to the point where you could imagine it keeps. You could imagine it getting even closer in a presidential election. But on the state level, Republicans, you know, still not going to win one of the Senate seats. And the, and the districts are, you know, pretty well carved out so that Republicans have, you know, a few of their own red districts and you know, and basically kind of cantons in a way. But, but, but so the real, the real problem is that, not that structurally things are going to change on the ground in New Jersey too much because they're set in that way. On a state level, it's more like, does Adam Hammawi gain votes by being seen as a guy who volunteered for Al Qaeda? And, and, and you're muted, John. You're mute, John.
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B
You're muted, John. We can't hear you yelling at us.
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A
I was gonna say let's pull away from New Jersey and go national. Here. We have a primary in Michigan in two months, two months from tomorrow, August 4th. Right now, the most extreme candidate in that race is ahead by five points, Abdul El Sayed, who seems to be in the 30s, while his two rivals, Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, are in the 20s. So it's two months. It's a long time. We don't know what's going to happen there. But Abdul El Sayed, a doctor, was a public health official, is the most extreme progressive in the race, virulently anti Zionist. And the question you raise, which is, is that a feature or a bug? The answer is obviously that it's a feature. And that as we can see in that case, maybe in the Platner case, because obviously there in Maine had an election between the most conventional Democratic politician you could possibly have chosen to run in that race. The sitting governor of the state recruited because she was viewed as the most likely person to be able to knock off the sitting Republican senator is swept away by this very odd guy, who was already an odd guy before we found out about the Nazi tattoo and other stuff, already had a very checkered and bizarre and peculiar resume already was somebody who was being endorsed by the most left factions of the Democratic coalition because of his extremism. So there seems to be no question the Democratic Party is undergoing its version of MAGA ism in the sense that just as in 2022, it seemed to be the case, in part because of Trump's interference, that the craziest candidates in the Republican Party kept getting nominations for things that a more conventional candidate would have walked into winning. Right.
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D
I mean, Chris, you could add Chris Raab in Pennsylvania's third District two weeks ago to that also.
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A
Right, exactly.
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B
And Alila Mejia, also in New Jersey.
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A
Right, right.
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B
Well, another Bernie Sanders supporting anti Israel freak.
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A
Right.
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C
We're talking about candidates here in Amali and said there is no moderate tech available to them. Really. I mean, we saw this against them.
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A
You mean against them.
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C
No. Where can they go and still be who they are? How can they move to the center? What would that look like? I mean, they've already settled on what they're claiming is a kind of moderation that's being blown into extremism by the right. I mean, we saw this with Mamdani. He never changed. He never, you know, and I consider him the exemplar of all this. He never stopped saying the things he said. But the media came around him and sort of threw him all these softballs and said, you know, Stephen Colbert said, you believe in Israel's right to exist as a state. Right. And he goes, yeah, leaving out the Jewish part. So they don't have to change anything. And I don't think they can. I don't think they can. There is no question that the extremism is a feature.
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A
So if it's a feature, this is the question that's going to be answered by what happens in Michigan in the next two months. How explicitly do McMorrow and Stevens come out and say we can really lose this seat to Mike Rogers, who is running, who will be the Republican nominee? Almost certainly for the Republicans Michigan seat. We can lose the seat because this guy is too extreme for Michigan and we're not. They may be too scared to say that because extremism in the Democratic Party primary electorate will be a feature and not a bug. And they will only.
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D
Only McMurra would be too afraid to say that. I think at some point you're, you know, if you're if you're in, if you're in that lane, if you're in the moderate lane, you're in. You're, you will have to say that. But McMorrow is the one who's trying to straddle the two lanes.
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B
I don't think they can, I don't think they can say that in Michigan based on what happened at the Michigan Democratic Convention, right. Earlier this year. I mean, that party's clearly in the throes of a anti Israel, anti Zionist, anti Trump left wing hysteria. So I think they're really in a box in the Democratic Senate candidates. But I just want to, I want to introduce a slightly different parallel to explain why I might be coming across as too sanguine over Hamawi. And I don't want to minimize how awful it is that he won this nomination. But when I look at him and how he won and the percentage he won and the fact that pro Israel advocates did not actually get involved in this race, it reminds me a lot of Cori Bush. And Cori Bush, the former representative from Missouri, right. She joins, she gets selected in 2020, I believe she joins the squad. She is anti Israel, she's crazy socialist, is all bent on anti Trump hysteria and resistance in a deep blue district. And then what we have over, over the four years is it's, she's just so bad a congressperson and not, you know, doesn't even actually represent the district in a lot of ways that eventually she's primaried and she moves out. And I think on the House level, you're gonna see something similar because we
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A
know that the same thing happened with Jamaal Bowman.
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B
Correct. Jamaal Bowman's another one. So you see these candidates who are swept up in the anti Trump movement and then they are elected, they join the squad, they come from district. Now Bowman came from a slightly more purplish district. I mean, not even as deep blue as this. And we should remember the person that Hamaoui is going to replace. She was terrible on Israel too. She was one of the few people to vote against aid to Israel during the war and in 2024. Right. So you have a similar dynamic happening at the state level and it's going to be damaging, but I think that the damage may be more short term than long term. The Senate, however, it could be very bad for the Democrats because it could cost them winnable seats in a cycle where they really, that if there, if there's a moment to win the Senate, it would be, it would be this one and then on the even higher level, the level of what the Democratic Party stands for, well, it's just atrocious because you go from terrorist sympathizers to, you know, people who are actually friends with terrorists. I mean, that's awful for the Democratic Party and they're struggling with it. You see the way that Graham Platner was received by the Democratic senators on Capitol Hill yesterday. I mean, they all had to kind of, they were squirming, you know, to try to say, oh, well, he's fine, we're going to win. And of course, Chuck Schumer, the Schomer, you know, Israel's noblest defender in the world, he backs the Nazi tattoo guy.
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A
But so you don't even have to talk about Israel. How about not talking about Israel at Platner? How about just the fact that he has a Nazi tattoo and this the highest ranking Jewish official in American history.
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B
We don't actually know the number of women that he sexed it. It's anywhere from six to above a dozen, but we still don't know. And then plus all the Reddit comments that are endless of him just showing a complete.
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D
I mean, in the, in the past, the Chris Kyle stuff would have been disqualifying, right? I mean, anti cheering American military deaths would have been disqualifying not that long ago.
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A
Yeah, he just, just to explain, Chris Kyle was the subject of the movie American Sniper, the gigantic Clint Eastwood hit with Bradley Cooper, and author of this memoir, American Sniper, and he was murdered in 2013. And his murder was celebrated at the time by Graham Platner, who said that he had served with him and that he deserved to die.
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B
It's psychotic. There's something wrong with Graham Platner.
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A
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B
There are some other races that happen yesterday that I want to talk about. We should talk about California, of course, but I also want to talk about Iowa briefly, because I think it gets into the overall problem facing the Democratic Party. There's no question that Donald Trump is unpopular. There's no question that this is shaping up to be a bad year for Republicans. However, there's, you know, sometimes my family used to have the expression many families do you know your eyes are bigger than your stomach, Right. And I think Iowa is maybe an example, just like Texas. When we talked about the Texas primary last week, another example of the Democrats eyes getting too big for their stomach. And this is why. So Democrats, including Schumer, are very happy. They actually got the Senate candidate they want. He's a state representative named Josh Turek, I believe, and he was supported by Schumer as well as Pete Buttigieg, likely 2028 Democratic candidate. He defeated State Senator Zach Walls for the Democratic Senate nomination and Walls was supported by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. So that's an example of the establishment actually getting the candidate of their choice. And Turek is going to face Ashley Hinson, a US Congresswoman, very popular in the general election. In the governor's race, something very interesting happened which is that Trump's endorsed Canada, lost a very close election. Randy Feenstra, this congressman who was endorsed very Late in the race by Trump, he lost to a man named Zach. Lon or Khan. My handwriting is very bad.
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A
Lon, I think Lon.
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B
Yeah. And this Lon is fascinating because he's a Maha person. He's a Maha activist. No experience. They're going to go up against another Democratic candidate that the Democrats are excited about in the governor's race. However, here's the thing I looked up. 2004 Iowa vote, okay? Bush won Iowa, barely. He won it by about 10,000 votes in 2004. In 2024, Donald Trump won Iowa by 200,000 votes. The state is a plus 13 Republican state. So in order for these candidates to benefit, especially the Senate candidate in a federal, you know, the governor races sometimes go differently than the national trend because of the state dynamic. But in particular these, the Senate race and these congressional races that are also being contested, you're talking a tsunami, you know, a huge 15 point swing in the vote for Democrats. And when you consider the current state of the brand, again, I'm slightly skeptical. So that's Iowa.
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A
And importantly, as you noted, as we talked about before the show, the Cook Political Report, which is a very expensive newsletter that purports to be the insider's insider, insider, smart guy. Look at how everything works in politics. Moved because of the victory of these two guys, has moved Iowa from likely Republican to lean Republican. That is their. These are the likely Republican, lean Republican, toss up lean Democrat, likely Democrat. Those are their five categories. It's still that state that Matt described. It's still an R+13 state. They're only doing, when they do something like this, it's because they want there to be a race, because they're emotionally though the people at Kookaboo want this to be true. And then Plato's Cave starts taking shape and they're gonna raise all this money and waste Democratic money chasing eyes bigger than your stomach, chasing a result in Iowa that is almost impossible to achieve rather than spending that money judiciously elsewhere. Well, I mean, again, media encourages. This happened in South Carolina also. When was that? Two or four years ago.
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B
Well, and it's happened in Texas. This is now like the third time it's happened in Texas because it happened with Beto O' Rourke in 18. It happened with Wendy Davis in 14 against Greg Abbott. I mean, look, the way that Democrats win the Senate is they have to hold their seats. That means they can't afford to lose Michigan, which we were just talking about. And they can't lose Georgia. Georgia. You know, Ossoff is The incumbent there, and he's. Incumbents always have an advantage, okay? So they can't lose either of those seats. And then they have to win North Carolina, which they can win Maine, which they could win, but with Platner exploding in front of our eyes, it becomes more difficult by the hour. Then they have to win Ohio, which Trump won by eight. He won by. No, he won by 11 points.
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A
Eleven.
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B
Okay, 11 points. He won by 500,000 votes.
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A
Vance won by eight, as I recall.
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B
Yes, Vance, right. But vance is not 22. But we have yet to get there. So they have to win Ohio, then they have to win Alaska. Trump won Alaska by 14 points. And then those are the four states they have to win. And then they're thinking about, oh, well, Iowa or even Texas. Look, it's bad, the situation's bad for Republicans. But in the Senate, the Democrats have a very steep hill to climb.
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A
I mean, there are examples of unexpected wave results. In the Senate, 2014 was one. Republicans won nine seats in 2014. The biggest one of all was 1980. That was obviously a landslide presidential election for Reagan, who won by 10 points over Carter, but brought in 12 Republican senators. And by the, you know, by the time the night was over in 1980, there were 55 Republican senators and 45 Democratic senators. And something like that had never happened before. And then literally the next, you know, the next cycle for those seats. In 1986, the Senate went Democratic again. So it was a sort of, you know, it was an irrational exuberance moment for Republicans. It is theoretically possible that Democrats, if there is a wave, then you can see Texas and Iowa and Alaska and Maine just following the national revulsion, a national revulsion with Trump and hatred of Republicans in this. But absent that. Well, and Schumer knows it needs to spend money almost.
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B
Have you been following how there's now another candidate on the ballot or trying to get on the ballot in Alaska named Dan P. Sullivan?
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A
Yeah.
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B
So the senator and the incumbent Republican is Dan Sullivan, great senator from Alaska, and he's running against former Congresswoman Mary Peltola. And this is clearly a scheme to confuse the voters and siphon away votes from the actual senator by people who think, oh, it's Dan Sullivan. So you wouldn't be resorting to these kind of chicanery if you felt, oh, yeah, the wave is rising. Look, it's tilting. But remember 2022. And I have to say there are commentators who I quite like who are saying, oh, this, it's a total disaster, total disaster, total disaster. They said the Same thing about Biden and the Democrats in 2022. And what happened? Well, yeah, I mean, didn't go well for Biden and the Democrats, but it wasn't badly, as people thought. Right, exactly. So we still have a ways to go. But I do want to talk about Los Angeles and California as well. And I just want to start by saying that California is a failed. A failed state because the fact that we don't know the winners in these primaries and we won't know for weeks is just. It's embarrassing.
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D
We might know who's the next president before we know who wins. Who won yesterday's.
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B
Well, you raise a great someone on X made the excellent point. Imagine if we actually did vote for president on the basis of the national popular vote. It meant with the way if California's current election practices held in such a scenario, we wouldn't know the president until after January 3, when the new Congresses are sworn in and possibly after January 20, when the President is constitutionally supposed to becomes the president at noon on that day. So it's really sad. And the very fact that California and Nate, this is Nate Silver, not a conservative, pointing this out as well. No other. There's no country like this as bad.
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A
Right.
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B
There's no.
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D
We have other big states that count their votes just fine.
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B
How about Florida and Texas? They get it done right. Now, Florida had to be shamed into.
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A
Washington and Oregon are male only.
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B
And they get it done and they
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A
get it done and mail only is really hard. Part of the problem here is you have this weird combination system of male early. The jungle primary, multiple sort of counting locations. And there's the secretary of state's office isn't big enough to deal with the, you know, the mad ballot numbers. I mean, it's a state of 38 million people with an electorate, I think of 29, theoretical electorate of like 29 million people. So counting it is harder than in other states just because of the sheer numbers. But look in. In New York. Yeah. Or yeah. I mean, Florida fixed its system. But like Florida, they know in an hour or something like.
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D
Basically, Florida's system is really should be the model because it's a state with either, you know, out of state residents, dual residents. It's a military state. Florida has all the combinations. Florida had it difficult to count the votes.
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C
Right.
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A
Florida had to fix its system because the country nearly fell apart because of its bad system in 2000. And it sort of was, you know, our backs are against a wall and there was a gun to the head of the American democracy until Florida repaired itself. Florida, another interesting case of a state that, you know, in 2000.
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B
Right, yeah, of course, yes.
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A
Right. Was Bush era.
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B
Right. Split.
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A
And now it's like deep red.
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B
I mean, this is the thing, this gets back to your bubble point. The Plato's Cave point is, you know, yeah, the political winds have shifted against the Trump administration for good reason, but it's still the same country. You know, there are deep red parts of this country, and that hasn't changed headed into the midterm either.
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A
Right. We need to. So the map, it's always worth going back to look at the electoral map of the United States. Do it at any moment. And what you see, there are 3,300 counties in the United States and 2,700 of them are Republican, but they're the least populous of the counties. And there are 10 metropolitan areas and their environs that are deep blue. Right. 10. And that's where 80% of the Democratic vote comes from. So structurally, Republicans have this advantage because of their geographical dominance. And Democrats, when you look at this, you say it's really hard. It's actually kind of amazing that Democrats do as well as they do in Senate races, that it's as competitive as it is at the Senate. At the gubernatorial level, it shows that Americans aren't necessarily just naked partisans. The weird things can happen at any moment based on these responses. The other point we should make is that the generic ballot. So there's a polling called a generic ballot. That's just the question. Would you vote for a Republican or a Democrat in your district for Congress in the upcoming election? And the most recent one, which is Emerson, which is the gold standard pollster at the moment, yesterday or this morning, comes out with a poll that has the Democrats leading the generic ballot by one point. That's with oil at $5. That's with the war taking a pretty bad turn, which we'll talk about in a minute. That's with inflation rising and all of that, and still the Democrats brand, as you say, is sufficiently damaged.
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D
And with, we should say they are what we talked about earlier, they're not running generic Democrat in several races. They're not even running the plus one version.
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A
Right.
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B
So just as we should say that as we record this On Wednesday morning, June 3rd, currently the Republican candidate for California governor, Steve Hilton, is ahead in the count by 120,000 votes. Steve Hilton has 28% of the vote so far. He leads Javier Becerra, the former Health and Human Service secretary for Joe Biden. We all Remember Javier Becerra? Not. He's one of these machine politicians that just cycles through the Democratic machine. Anyway, he's in second place. He was 25% of the vote. And he's duking it out right now with Tom Steyer, the billionaire, Who is actually under 20%. Not even a million votes.
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A
Yeah. So not a lot of duking there. I mean, not a lot of duking.
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B
Like a body slam.
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A
Yeah. He spent $300 million.
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B
Yeah. As you know, as we remember from the Michael Bloomberg presidential candidacy in 2020, money does not equate votes. So that's the.
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A
He won Guam. It was a billion dollars for Guam. He did win Guamoa.
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B
Yeah. America Samoa.
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A
Samoa, excuse me. That's right.
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B
Because of the electoral system in California, the top two vote finishers move on to the general election. Now, I have to say, in fourth place right now, with 11% of the vote and 566,000 votes is the other Republican candidate, Chad Bianco, a sheriff. There's a lot of pressure on him to drop out of the race in the final weeks ahead of the runoff and endorse Hilton. And if that had happened, I mean, that's, you know, as of now, it's another 10% added to Hilton's vote. So that. However, there's only 58% of the votes counted. So you don't know with the California electoral system, all of a sudden, one of these unions that run the state say, oh, well, we have all these votes here for my trunk.
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A
The trunk of my car. Oh, yeah, no ballots in it.
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B
Two weeks from now, California is the
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D
state where they can find votes anywhere, but they can't find water and they
- [38:59]
B
can't find fraud either, by the way. So that's just. I wanted to memorialize that gubernatorial level and then that's the gubernatorial level, and then the. That the real contest, a contest that I think has huge implications for the future of America, is the LA mayoral race, which, as we speak here, 63% of the votes have been counted. So that's good on Los Angeles. They're doing a little bit better than the state. The incumbent, a former Castro trainee, Karen Bass. She's ahead with 35% of the vote. And trailing her in second place is Spencer Pratt, the reality TV star who has really taken the world by storm with his viral ads and his common sense campaign against homelessness and crime and also the lack of rebuilding after the Palisades fire. He trails her by about 20,000 votes. And then the third candidate that was receiving a lot of attention, Nithya Rahman, the socialist who is running, she's in third place now. She's 40,000 votes behind Pratt at 22%. So that's how things stand right now. Meaning that we have the chance for actual choices for the voters at the gubernatorial and then the LA mayors race in November. Unless suddenly these votes just start coming in for either Rahman or Tom Steyer.
- [40:41]
A
Yeah. I mean the one thing to be said is that if you did do the math, it's still almost impossible for either Hilton or Pratt to win, even if they make it into the runoff.
- [40:56]
B
You mean a general election?
- [40:57]
A
In a general election, yeah. Yeah. So what we're talking about here more is the, is the assertion, I think for building purposes, that there is building up a, an anti Democratic vote in California from which you could start rebuilding the sort of self destructed Republican Party.
- [41:21]
B
Yeah. The way I would say it is. And there's definitely an anti Bass vote. There's an anti incumbency vote in Los Angeles that if Pratt makes it to the runoff, makes it to the general, he has an opportunity. It's very hard because he's coded. Right, right. But he does have, I think, something of an opportunity. Hilton, you know, there, it's a little bit there, it's a change, it had to be changed. But both, both would be running up against an anti Trump tide and a, you know, in a blue year. It's hard. But I'll just say this and something that I've thought about actually since the Palisade fire happened. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, all of the blame at the time went to George W. Bush and the Bush administration and the whole media in the Democratic Party, everyone. This was Bush failed us. Remember Kanye west, of course, showing signs, early signs of his mental problems saying George W. Bush hates white people, black people rather. That was what was happening in 2005. Beginning in 2006, voters in Louisiana threw out New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and then threw out Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco and laid the beginning to lay the groundwork for red turn in Louisiana with figures like Bobby Jindal, for example, who had been in the House and then he went statewide. So oftentimes you have this kind of reaction to a total government incompetence that expresses itself later on. This is similar to the argument you make, John, about COVID Right. When governments can't respond badly to these natural disasters, the effects show up in weird ways. And I think that is what hands. That's why we're talking about Steve Hilton and certainly talking about Spencer Pratt in ways that normally we would not be talking about the challengers to the Democratic establishment in California.
- [43:38]
C
I think one of the hurdles here though in California is that when you have a state that's failing as comprehensively as it is, where the problems are so broad and dire is that there are people, we've seen it, it's more urgent to leave the state than, than to stay behind and, and change the direction of the governance. So then you, you'll, you end up with, with the, with the die hard.
- [44:09]
B
The machines have no problem with the middle class fleeing to red America because
- [44:13]
A
it dissolidifies its control, it empowers them. Exactly, exactly. But yes, we don't know what the net effect of these kinds of earth shaking events are. And we do have one example in California history of a massive failure of governance leading to an unexpected Republican statewide victory. And that was both the recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003 because of an energy crisis that led to rolling blackouts across the state for a year. And then of course the totally unexpected election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor who served two terms. And you know, the state had already gone deep, you know, deep blue at this point. But Schwarzenegger was a reformist outsider candidate who said, you know, none of these people can do this job.
- [45:11]
B
Also like Hilton, an immigrant.
- [45:13]
A
Right, an immigrant with an accent. So Hilton has. The parallels are striking. I mean again, that was an extraordinarily unusual off cycle election that had no national valence. And so it's a slightly different story. But nonetheless you look to history. It's not impossible, but it is an uphill climb. And Pratt, I have to say, as you mentioned, Pratt is an exciting and unexpected candidate. And that could also mean that when the full ire of the Democratic and liberal machine is turned on him like a fire hose, that he won't be able to remain standing. Or that could Teflon him or it could jujitsu him into a higher standing cuz it'll look like they're beating up on him unfairly. And all he is is a guy who had a house in the Pacific Palisades that was destroy the city. May has made it impossible for him to build his house again. And then he's like, I got to run for office because these people have ruined my life. And they just. The way they're ruining your lives. That's a very powerful.
- [46:24]
D
You have to be mayor of Los Angeles if you want to rebuild your house. That's the message.
- [46:28]
A
That is the message.
- [46:29]
D
Run for mayor if you Want to rebuild your house from the fire caused by the negligence. But also, one other thing to say about Spencer Pratt is that he's very good on tv. And that's no surprise as he's a TV guy.
- [46:40]
B
What a shout out.
- [46:41]
D
That's comes in really handy in politics. When you ask him questions, he answers them. Well, like he gives. He has a lot of. First of all, he has a lot of emotion in it. He does not, you know, because he's a TV guy. He's not stiff as a board. And so you ask him questions, he gets real animated and you can see it, you know, feels like he's a passionate guy and all that stuff. But also, his answers contain detail. He talks to experts. His answers contain detail. They say, he says, my opponent wants to do this, but look what happens when you do this. You get this, see? In other words, he talks like a very, Like a, Like a passionate wonk almost. And that I think will work well in his favor when they, when they say, like, oh, he. What does this reality TV star know? And he's happy to tell you what he knows.
- [47:29]
A
No, I mean, look, the whole point is if he can break the institutional advantage of incumbency and the mayoralty and the partisan advantage in Los Angeles, if he can somehow elude them, break them, or use them to his advantage, he can find a very narrow lane to win. But that's not. If you were going on Kalshi. I'm not sure that's a bet that you would necessarily want to make. It's hot. It's a hot summer night and you're hot in your bed, and the air conditioning isn't helping. You got your partner next to you, and that partner is making you hot. You blame the thermostat, you blame the ac, you blame the person next to you. It's the sheets, man. It's the sheets. It's your bedding. Wrong. Sheets trap heat. Bowl and Branch provides you the cool side of the pillow and everywhere summer bedding options by Bowen Branch are breathable, lightweight, and designed to keep you cool all night long. With 100% organic cotton sheets woven specifically for airflow, not just softness. I'm somebody who doesn't sleep well. Trust me when I say that these sheets make you sleep better. So sleep cooler this summer with bowen branch. Get 15% off your first order, plus free shipping at bolandbranch.com commentary with code COMMENTARY. That's bowl and Branch. B O L L A N D B R A N C H.com Commentary Code Commentary to unlock 15% off Boland Branch.com Commentary Code Commentary exclusions apply. It's hot. It's a hot summer night and you're hot in your bed and the air conditioning isn't helping. You got your partner next to you and that partner is making you hot. You blame the thermostat, you blame the ac. You blame the person next to you. It's the sheets, man. It's the sheets. It's your bedding. Wrong. Sheets trap heat. Bowl and Branch provides you the cool side of the pillow and everywhere summer bedding options by Bowlen Branch are breathable, lightweight, and designed to keep you cool all night long. With 100% organic cotton sheets woven specifically for airflow, not just softness. I'm somebody who doesn't sleep well. Trust me when I say that these sheets make you sleep better. So sleep cooler this summer with bow and branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping@bolandbranch.com commentary with code COMMENTARY. That's bowl and Branch. B O L L A N D B R A N C H.com commentary code commentary to unlock 15% off bolandbranch.com commentary code commentary exclusions apply. Okay, look, we've been going here for 45 minutes and we have avoided the fact that America is in very dire shape outside of last night's election.
- [50:34]
B
Don't you think that's indicative of where the country is on the war, though?
- [50:40]
A
How so?
- [50:41]
B
I think people would much rather be talking about domestic politics than hearing what's happening in the Middle east because nothing. The truth is, nothing is happening in the Middle east except we're fighting Iran, they're fighting us.
- [50:55]
A
Oh, I don't agree. I think Iran is fighting us and we're not fighting Iran. I think what happened.
- [51:01]
B
We blew up targets last night on Kesham island and we disabled a tanker that was trying to run the blockade.
- [51:08]
A
Yeah. And they blew up the Kuwait airport. And they're firing ballistic missiles whose location we know. And we are not hitting their re exposed ballistic missile batteries because according to us, we are still in ceasefire. While they are firing on Kuwait and the UAE and might start firing on Saudi Arabia. They're not firing on Israel because they're too scared to fire on Israel. But.
- [51:37]
B
But Hezbollah's firing on Israel.
- [51:40]
A
Okay, so. And Trump, for reasons that are completely elusive, has decided to take the Iranian position that it believes that a ceasefire in Lebanon is part of the ceasefire that between the United States and Iran and therefore Israel defending itself against Hezbollah rockets and attacks and going aggressively to destroy Hezbollah's capabilities. Trump has now taken, effectively taken Iran's side in saying that Israel has to pull back and not do anything and not go into Beirut and be as effing crazy as he has now acknowledged that he said, he said to Lydia Moynihan of the New York Post that Bibi was being too mean to Lebanon. This is not the American position. The American position is that Lebanon has been partially occupied by a terrorist group under Iran's sway that is destroying Lebanon's sovereignty. Something, by the way, that the prime minister of Lebanon implicitly agrees with, even though Hezbollah is partially in his government. And Trump is framing his argument that Israel should not be, you know, aggressively prosecuting this war against Hezbollah on the grounds that he's being mean to Lebanon, where arguably Israel is trying to save Lebanon from Hezbollah. So Trump has lost the plot.
- [53:11]
D
Trump has also been more aggressive toward Hezbollah. Like, this is not the American position. It's not Trump's position. Trump has been more aggressive over the past two years toward Hezbollah, arguably, than Bibi Netanyahu has. We've had numerous times where Trump is like, just do what needs to be done. This thing can't become, you know, I can't have this frozen conflict constantly, you know, messing up my negotiations elsewhere. Just finish it. And he's been more aggressive in that sense. And also in the ceasefire terms. Remember decades ago, last month, in the ceasefire terms that he last approved were basically suggested that Lebanon is not a state until it proves otherwise. He basically was like, look, Israel can go in. It doesn't have to leave any territory in Lebanon. And what, what territory it will leave will have been proven to be Hezbollah free, made so by the Lebanese armed forces. In other words, you can have sovereignty over every place that you extend sovereignty over. Prove it. And now it's sort of like, well, we'd all want to violate Lebanon's sovereignty when the idea, the very idea was a joke to him. I don't know, four weeks ago, five weeks ago.
- [54:35]
A
So what do we learn? You know, what have we learned, Dorothy? What have we learned is that Trump's word means nothing and Trump's word doesn't. Trump's word changes from day to day and week to week. And he is recalling something, a ceasefire that is not a ceasefire. And he is referring, even, by the way, Matt, you say we struck targets in Iran, we disabled the tanker, all of that. He is still clinging to the idea that there is a ceasefire. Yeah, go ahead.
- [55:07]
B
Well, it's very reminiscent of late 2019, where the Iranian militias in Iraq were firing on our bases there, and we were kind of, you know, we were defending our bases. Trump was saying, well, no, no, I'm not gonna. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We have maximum pressure against Iran. Then finally he said something like, well, if they kill an American, there's gonna be problem. They killed an American contractor, then they. They were injuring Americans, then they killed an American soldier, I believe. And what happens? He destroys Qasem Soleimani. I think we're in a very similar situation right now. Right now, Trump's priority is to get this deal. He wants the deal to open up the Strait of Hormuz. Now, of course, the ceasefire, which we've been stuck in for over two months, was premised on Iran opening up the Strait of Hormuz, which they have not done. And now we have more indications that Iran has been laying mines throughout this process. But that's what he wants. He wants to get some sort of deal. But he's totally content with the status quo. He's totally content with the status quo. The problem is he's talking to people who have no. They do not control the people with the guns. You can see what's. I think one way to read what's happening over the past 48 hours with these escalating Iranian attacks on the Gulf states and on us is the IRGC is trying to torpedo the diplomatic process and to show, look, we're the guys in charge now. And why Trump doesn't understand that and actually deal with the people who are running Iran, which is the irgc, which is not the Nepo baby Ayatollah, not the president, who, according to Iran International, submitted his resignation. Right. But the actual IRGC commanders, Vahidi and company. That, to me, is the real mystery, though. I think eventually he's gonna lash out.
- [57:22]
A
I would have thought he would have lashed out before he is sending every. Abe, you've been pretty quiet here. I think you and I probably agree on what I'm gonna say, so you.
- [57:34]
B
You say it.
- [57:35]
A
Yeah.
- [57:35]
C
Well, I mean, the hard thing is I've sort of run out of things to say about this because it's the same thing I would have said two, three weeks ago, which is he has to resume kinetic fighting at some point here. There's no deal available except a terrible fake deal. If that's where we end up, it will be a historic tragedy and a disaster for his presidency and for the country. The war was very successful. The ceasefire has been almost ruinous. That has not changed since the ceasefire began. Everyone can see it, seemingly except the President. So I don't understand what the last straw would be for him. He's also, as we discussed with Jonathan Schanzer, possibly constrained by munitions shortage on our side. So he's gotten himself into. Everyone always said, Trump is in a box. Trump is in a box. Trump is in a box. He's now put himself in a box.
- [58:52]
B
But see, I think he's fine with the box. I know, because there is no deal. There is no deal. And then he said last week, remember, he said it's a final determination. And then there was no determination. And it looks like they sent back tougher language to whoever they're talking with. In the meantime, the blockade is going on. We are having this low wage conflict when the IRGC lashes out. And the bet, I think with Iran that he's making is the economic situation is going to continue to decline. So the real issue here is his constraint of Israel. That's what I take issue with. That is wrong, because if anything, Israeli action against Hezbollah would give America additional leverage. And why he's denying that is, you know, is a mystery. And other than just his kind of habitual, like, want to play nice to bad guys.
- [59:59]
C
It's disturbing though, because it indicates that his preference is not to let a U.S. blockade destroy the Iranian economy, it's to get a deal.
- [60:13]
A
But, okay, so, you know, Shanzer has said, and I believe that it is conceivable that the best long term strategy for actual victory here is what Matt is laying out. That is to say we blockade the Strait of Hormone. We choke them economically until they basically are strangled to death. That's a long term strategy. That's six, eight, ten months of naval blockading and interdiction and sanctioning officials and maybe assassinating some people in order to send the message and all of that. Meanwhile, what he seems to be worried about is oil prices, right. West Texas Intermediate. And I think he's very proud of the fact that oil is in the 90s. When Biden, you know, in 2022, after the Ukraine war, oil got to $122 a barrel. So he's increasing oil prices.
- [61:22]
B
You said $5 gas. But the truth is gas prices nationwide have fallen by some 30 cents since they peaked at $4.50 a gallon in mid May.
- [61:33]
A
Right.
- [61:34]
B
So, yes, the status quo is meant to manage the economics while continuing to apply the pressure on the regime.
- [61:46]
A
So do you think, honestly, do you think that Trump has a strategy or is he just like Is he just Fran Tarkenton running around in the backfield?
- [61:58]
B
I think he doesn't. He, He. He does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
- [62:04]
A
Right.
- [62:06]
B
And so what we found is he got himself into this position, as he always does, where, because of the munitions, because of the economic conditions, where oil was rising and where the yield was rising, and where there was economic disturbance, the gas prices were rising, and because of the Gulf monarchs saying to him that if he took the next step on the escalation ladder, then Iran would target the Gulf desalinization and electrical generation plants, and they don't believe they have the air defenses necessary to defend them. He imposed the ceasefire, but he's having the ceasefire without conceding on the nuclear program yet, so. Right, yet. But it's amazing that he has. And what did he say the other day? Well, we might hear back from them in a week. That's another week. And I just, I'm not seeing when he. The time for us to rip our hair out on Iran, not on what he's doing in Israel, because I totally agree with your critique of what he's doing in Israel. But the time to rip our hair out on Iran is if he signs an MoU that ends the blockade and provides some upfront financial benefit to Iran in exchange for meaningless nuclear promises. And we have not. We're not there.
- [63:40]
A
Okay, well, I'm glad you're. I'm glad you're. You're. You're so calm. I'm. I'm delighted to have a calming voice because, you know, before we started this podcast, I told. I told Noam Bloom, our producer, that I wanted to have a special shot in the YouTube video, just like sitting there of a cyanide pill right next to me that I might take if the conversation went, you know, far in the wrong direction. Or maybe like that little cup that the guy drank.
- [64:12]
D
The International Criminal Court.
- [64:14]
B
I just think that you have to be calm during the Trump era because it constantly looks like everything's falling apart
- [64:26]
A
when actually, very quickly. Let's talk about that. So let's just go into. He's had a pretty bad couple of weeks domestically in terms of his own. The sort of the grandiosity of the second Trump term. Right. The fund, the weaponization payout fund, has been killed basically pretty much by the set. But Trump has agreed to withdraw the demand for the $1.8 billion weaponization fund. He has surrendered control of the Kennedy Center. And
- [65:07]
B
all of that language, the way you put it, it's like he's been holed up there for months.
- [65:15]
A
Yeah, exactly. Other things. But of course, then you have yesterday another one of these head shaking moments of him, you know, like serving his team in appointing a lunatic named Bill Pulte as the Acting Director of National Intelligence, an official housing official in the Trump administration, notable for having the fantastic idea of pursuing a Fed governor on, on mortgage, criminally on the fact that she had lied on her taxes about her mortgage. Then it turned out that his dad, who was a very rich real estate guy, had done exactly the same thing. But he's clearly a sop. I don't know to whom. To Roger Stone. I don't even know to whom.
- [66:14]
B
Well, I think he lied. I mean, I think it's less, I think it's less a favorite than it is a middle finger to the people who have been giving him all this guff as he's complaining, you can see on the Truth Social, he's annoyed that people are, you know, got the yips, as he says, or what he said recently, all the people chipping away, you know, at these various things. And so again, he lashes out by doing something like this. And for everyone in our audience who is angry at me for being copacetic about, and I'm not copacetic, I would rather he forced the strait open, as we can do with all the risks entailed. But if you're angry at me for being copacetic about the situation in Iran, allow me to say that this is one of the worst decisions Donald Trump has made in his second term. Appointing again, not even nominating, because he knows that there's no way that the Senate would ever confirm Bill Pulty to be the Director of National Intelligence. So he has appointed Bill Pulte to be the Acting Director of National Intelligence. And in this capacity, Pulte can serve as acting director for 210 days, until January of 2027. That said, I don't think he's going to last that long for a couple of reasons. One is what you just laid out, John. As the head of the FHFA Federal Housing Finances Authority, or administration, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Pulte has led the lawfare, one wing of the lawfare campaign against Trump's enemies. So he's used these mortgage tactics against Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Lisa Cook, the aforementioned Fed Governor, and Congressman Eric Swalwell is stirring up controversy. All the cases are tied up in litigation. It's clear retribution and criminalization of politics. So that's one reason that alone. But then there's the fact that According to statute 2004, statute establishing the Director of National Intelligence, which is a, it's a White House office that basically is meant to coordinate and oversee the 18 different spy agencies in our government, the statute that created this position in the aftermath of 911 explicitly requires the director to have experience, extensive, not just experience, extensive national security experience. And it's unclear whether Pulte has ever had a security clearance or could get one. He is a housing, he's a real estate businessman. He majored in broadcast communications. He's a die hard Trump supporter and loyalist. And there are real. You'd think the Senate was angry about the Weaponization fund. They are simmering over this appointment. And now there's a threat from the Democrats that if Pulte remains in this acting position, the Democrats will withhold their votes to reauthorize the critical FISA surveillance program. And I think there's, I think there's going to be similar blowback on Capitol Hill as there was to the Weaponization fund.
- [69:53]
A
Okay, I think we should, I think we should leave it there. This was a much less despairing podcast episode than I expected. That's because I'm here, you're here.
- [70:08]
B
I'm here for you.
- [70:09]
A
Twinkling joy.
- [70:11]
B
And people who know me will say that's what I do wherever I go.
- [70:17]
A
Copacetication, if that's a word that I can, I can incept. We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks, Matt. For Abe and Seth, I'm John Pod Horowitz. Keep the candle bur.