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- [00:01]
Abe Greenwald
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's tax season, and we're all a.
- [00:05]
John Podhoretz
Bit tired of numbers, but here's one.
- [00:07]
Abe Greenwald
You need to $16.5 billion. That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Now here's a good number.
- [00:17]
John Podhoretz
100 million.
- [00:18]
Abe Greenwald
That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first year@lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:41]
John Podhoretz
Some drink champagne Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the.
- [00:52]
Matthew Continetti
Worst for the best.
- [00:55]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, March 11, 2025. I am John Pothoric, the editor of Commentary magazine, excited to tell you that we are closing the April issue today, and we should have a bunch of its contents up tomorrow, Thursday and on Friday. Featuring a remarkable roster of political, cultural and social essays, including our cover by Tevy Troy, which is called In Praise of Big Pharma. So here's a piece you haven't read, and you are going to read, and you are going to be enlightened by our own Matt Continetti has a piece called the Putin Trap, which is the question of why we are now on our sixth or seventh administration since the year 2000, seeking to make nice with the Russian dictator who fleeces us every single time. And so there's much more in there. We'll talk about it as the as the days progress. With me, as always, Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [01:59]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [02:00]
John Podhoretz
The aforementioned Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [02:04]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [02:04]
John Podhoretz
And Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [02:07]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [02:09]
John Podhoretz
So there's a point yesterday afternoon when I just gave up. I don't understand anything. I've now decided that you shouldn't be listening to me anymore because I am completely clueless and beyond my ability to reckon with or have any sense of the chaos that the world is displaying. I don't understand the Ukraine peace deal. I don't understand why Donald Trump is selling cars for the world's richest man who doesn't need him to sell cars. I don't understand what exactly is going on with the House and the continuing resolution. I don't understand why liberals are turning Mahmoud Khalil into the new Luigi Mangione. I don't understand why they made Luigi Mangioni into a hero as opposed to a murderer. I don't understand. That's why I'm turning to Matt Continetti to explain this while I cry silently in the corner.
- [03:00]
Abe Greenwald
I just want you to. I want you to know, as in therapy, I think this is a good moment that you reach this moment of understanding and learning and self knowledge. And from here there's growth. John.
- [03:14]
John Podhoretz
Or Socrates. Right. I know that. I know. I have seen. Perfect.
- [03:20]
Abe Greenwald
The philosophical wisdom has descended upon you.
- [03:24]
John Podhoretz
Yes, that's. That's.
- [03:25]
Seth Mandel
That's right. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
- [03:28]
Abe Greenwald
Only one.
- [03:29]
Seth Mandel
But the light bulb has to really want to change.
- [03:32]
Abe Greenwald
Right?
- [03:34]
John Podhoretz
I just want to go on vacation.
- [03:35]
Abe Greenwald
Anyway, I have a brief comment on Mahmoud before I go to Ukraine and the cr. I was reading the coverage of Mahmoud Khalil's deportation proceedings. And in the New York Times story in yesterday's paper, they said, you know, it's unclear what he did except become involved in the mostly peaceful protests at Columbia. So the return. It's back. The return of mostly peaceful.
- [04:06]
John Podhoretz
It's back.
- [04:07]
Abe Greenwald
It's back. Yeah. So I was very much amused by that New York Times story.
- [04:11]
John Podhoretz
I mean, he did not. To be fair to Mahmoud Khalil, while he is a supporter and an abettor and an aider of a monstrous terrorist organization, he did not set a dollar store on fire because there are no dollar stores in Morningside Heights, the location of Columbia and Barnard.
- [04:28]
Abe Greenwald
But those are mostly peaceful protests at Columbia and Barnard. Yes. So Ukraine, I thought yesterday was a good moment, mainly because as a result of the deal that the United States and Ukraine reached in Saudi Arabia, America has resumed our military aid and our intelligence sharing with Ukraine. There's been a lot of, you know, I think, confusion about what Trump's aim is here. Trump's aim has always been to end the war in Ukraine. But I believe that he has viewed this as a sequence, a diplomatic sequence. And before presenting terms of any ceasefire to Russia, he had to get Ukraine to be on his side, to also accept that this would be a ceasefire that they would do, they would abide by. And the reluctance of Ukraine, the understandable reluctance, because Russia's killing its people every day to sign on to this plan is what led to the blow up in the Oval Office a couple weeks ago. But the upshot was that yesterday, Ukraine and US Positions are now aligned. And as Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said, it's now up to Russia. Now, I happen to believe, with historical evidence behind me, that Russia will not respond to this ceasefire proposal.
- [06:04]
John Podhoretz
Well, it did respond. Right. It attacked Kyiv and Kharkiv after the announcement that, that Ukraine was agreeing to the ceasefire, which is why you don't necessarily want to agree to a ceasefire in the middle of a war without both sides agreeing at the same time.
- [06:20]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and remember the morning of the meeting, Ukraine sent a big drone attack into Moscow. Most of it was shot down, but the war is still going on. Yeah, but what we've heard from Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, is that it's a non starter, they're not going to agree to peacekeepers. Putin of course, has never changed his demands on Ukraine neutrality, disarmament, so called denazitation, which means an entirely new government. And so what, what I take from what happened yesterday is that at least America is back supporting Ukraine and that's an important step with this administration.
- [07:02]
John Podhoretz
Okay, so here's the reason that I'm confused. So I'm confused. So the Ukrainian government basically backed into a corner, has agreed to American terms, let's face it, right? It said, okay, we agree to a ceasefire as long as Russia agrees to a ceasefire. Which of course that is perfectly rational. I mean there is no such thing as this one sided ceasefire. That's just surrender. One side ceasefire is capitulation or Appomattox or something like that. That's what a one sided ceasefire is. It's like getting a two year vacation without pay from your off from your work. That's you're fired. It's just not being called being fired. So they have, they have ceded to reality. The reality being that the Trump administration had decided to treat them almost like they were an enemy. They needed to change the terms of that relationship. And so they have made this agreement that is probably relatively low stakes to them because of what you think, Matt. Right. Which is that Russia is not going to make a deal. Therefore Ukraine will have played ball, will not have the. Trump's aims, will not be secured and the arms and the intelligence sharing begin to flow again until, for another four days until Trump decides to cut it off again. Because he, he doesn't have a play with Moscow and he's got a play with Ukraine because he's a bully and Ukraine's smaller and less strong and is completely. Not completely.
- [08:33]
Abe Greenwald
I mean we're not there yet.
- [08:36]
John Podhoretz
Right now we're, right now we're at. Okay, we're not there yet. But here's where we are with the Trump administration. Trump administration is. I'm putting on tariffs. No, I'm not. Yes, I am. No, I'm not here they are. No, they're not. Ontario, don't do that. That's not nice. Stop cutting off our electricity. We'll let things go back to Canada. No, we won't. Israel should unleash hell no. We should let 10 hostages out. No. Hamas is worth dealing with. No, it's not. Yes, it is. That is what is going on with the Trump administration. When it met, when in, in for, in terms of its public diplomacy. I, I so assuming that the deal that has been made with Ukraine is not permanent, but let's say but is actually now the new basis for going forward, I think is a fool's errand. You can't assume that Trump won't wake up Friday morning and decide that the reason that Russia isn't playing ball is because, you know, Zelensky is impossible.
- [09:31]
Matthew Continetti
I, I think there's another possibility, which is that quote plays ball with the goal of imposing terms on some permanent end to the war that is entirely favorable to Russia, in which case I think Trump will then return to pressuring Zelenskyy to take that. And if Zelenskyy doesn't want that, which he won't, then Trump will make Ukraine the enemy again. I think that's a distinct possibility that.
- [10:07]
John Podhoretz
Seems uncharacteristic of Putin. That kind of game, whatever his game is, and he's, as Matt's piece in the April commentary suggests, Putin does somehow emanate signals to people and Americans that there is, there's room to play with him, but he tends not to do what you're suggesting, which is kind of Machiavellian. Take a step back in order to take two steps forward two weeks from now. That would seem weak or it would seem like you're capitulating. And that's not, he would tend to sort of, you know, kill 200 Russians and say the Ukrainians did it or something like that. Like not, not to not could happen too much. Like, seem like he's, I think, I think it.
- [10:53]
Abe Greenwald
Returning to your initial point of Socratic humility, we need to just approach this and say we don't really know what's going to happen. We do know that after his meeting with the Qataris today and tomorrow, I think Steve Witkoff is going to go to Moscow and meet with Putin again. And we're not clear what, you know, what will be communicated. Last time he was with Putin, it was for several hours, maybe I kind of, I side in the realm of speculation a little bit with Abe. Maybe Putin sees some kind of advantage here to be maybe nice and say, Ah, 30 days. Okay, I don't his, you know, the Eastern Front in Ukraine has gone pretty poorly for Russia in the past year. They've barely gained any ground. Their equipment is pretty terrible. On the other hand, in Kursk, which is the piece of Russia that Ukraine invaded last year, the Russian forces seem to be making advances. So Putin has a choice here. Does he want to freeze the lines where they are, which might help him in the east of Ukraine and hurt him in Kursk, or does he just want to continue the war? We really don't know, though, as you say, I mean, most likely he'll continue the war.
- [12:24]
Seth Mandel
And the Kursk part, I think, is important, which is credit, some credit to the administration and Zelensky for working this out now. Because if they manage to get Russia to stop now, even for 30 days, really stop, including Kursk, it would make a big difference, because if Russia sweeps Ukraine out of Kursk, the war is over. There's no. There's no more. There's no more chips for Ukraine to play at the bargaining table.
- [12:57]
John Podhoretz
That's.
- [12:57]
Seth Mandel
That was the one that they were able to say, we have some of your territory. You have lots of our territory. It's not going to be an even trade, but we'll take some of our territory back, please. And if Russia is able to just take Kursk back completely, you don't really see much leverage for Ukraine, which is also why I have my doubts about Russia agreeing to this or abiding by this, because it feels like Russia is within striking distance of sort of checkmating Ukraine at the negotiating table, taking away anything that they. Any leverage that they might have. And it seems unlike Putin, to not just go and take this thing that's there. And the only reason they would do it, I suppose, is if Ukraine is putting up enough of a fight and Russia's forces are stretched thin enough that they really don't feel like they can march through Kursk right now. But I do think that's probably the key point to watch for the ceasefire, especially because anything that Russia does during the ceasefire they're going to claim is outside the bounds of a ceasefire. They're going to send in the little green men to curse because it's on Russian territory. They're going to play all sorts of games. So I, we. That's. That's the area to watch closely.
- [14:17]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough. And. But I will say this, which is that philosophical humility, since that is the theme of this, of this episode, of the podcast, this is not philosophical humility, is simply sort of not rueful understanding, but some kind of understand somehow. So far, in the three years of this war, Ukraine manages to pull rabbits out of hats like they're. I'm not saying that Russia can't overwhelm and overrun Kursk and take it back from the Ukrainians. They can, but they haven't yet. They're doing better. But the invention of the Ukrainian military offensive against Russia, the inventive qualities that they have been able to pull out, you know, desperation and the need for national survival have generated, suggests that Putin would be right to fear pulling himself off the chessboard for 30 days.
- [15:19]
Abe Greenwald
I would add to that. I noticed in my podcast feed last night an emergency episode of the Tucker Carlson Podcast recorded with the anti American Colonel Douglas MacGregor responding to the Ukraine US deal. And I suspect that the reason this was an emergency podcast was the Tucker Carlson faction is alarmed that America and Ukraine are now aligned again and the aid is flowing. So I think this was yesterday was a good day for Ukraine and it was a good day for America, but we don't know what tomorrow will bring.
- [16:04]
John Podhoretz
Okay, well, thank you very much for answering that question. Now let's move on to the two ad campaigns out of the administration that were launched yesterday. One for a car company and one for a fast food joint I thought had long been gone, like, had disappeared from the face of the earth because I haven't seen one in many years. That is Steak n Shake. You'll be happy to know that Steak n Shake announced that it was substituting beef tallow for vegetable oil in the making of its French fries. Now, this is bad news for those of us who keep kosher. Beef tallow means that you can't eat french fries because there's. Beef tallow is not kosher. And so, you know, when McDonald's shifted from beef tallow to vegetable oil, suddenly people, not people who like, keep rigorously orthodox kosher and will not eat at a, at a place that isn't, isn't a fully kosher establishment. But people who do keep kosher but will be, you know, will, will eat out at non kosher places, could have McDonald's french fries. And I think McDonald's also went back.
- [17:24]
Seth Mandel
To use tallow among the modern Orthodox. The question of the French fries is like a fam.
- [17:32]
John Podhoretz
It's very big.
- [17:33]
Seth Mandel
It's very, and you're wandering around what is the, what is the French frying process at these, you know, random places.
- [17:41]
John Podhoretz
So I don't really think that Steak and Shake has a large kosher population. That is Thursday, as I said, I don't, didn't even know that it still existed. Nonetheless, rfk, our Health and Human Services secretary, did a public event praising Steak and Shake because as you may know, hydrogenated vegetable oil is an evil that is murdering tens of billions of people and is taking us out, taking people out, causing obesity, destroying human lives, you know, do it. Destroying our intestinal systems and all of that. And so he essentially made a commercial for Steak and Shake praising Steak and Shake, giving them tens of millions of dollars of free publicity on Fox because he went to, I think at Hannity and talked about this. So that was ad number one. You know, I mean, maybe he can continue to go on finding places like the Ground Round and show me. We should just say this is in.
- [18:45]
Abe Greenwald
The middle of a measles outbreak in Texas and that's already claimed the life of one child. So. So it's a question of priorities here as well. Yes, he's not focusing so much on the measles out there.
- [19:00]
John Podhoretz
Well, look, one child may die of measles, but 25 billion children have died from vaccines, as you may know, according to, according to rfk, who is now canceling programs to promote vaccines or to sort of figure out why people. Now this is not so bad. Like when we heard that HHS was canceling some kind of a study trying to figure out why people are increasingly not getting vaccinated. You can understand what that's about, right? That that is actually kind of like the disinformation programs of the Biden administration, which is we need to figure out why Americans are so stupid and brainwash them into looking into doing this the right, the right way.
- [19:43]
Abe Greenwald
The answer is pretty obvious why there's more. Well, at least in some quarters, there's more vaccine hesitancy because of the COVID vaccine.
- [19:50]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [19:50]
Abe Greenwald
That's why people got it and then it didn't work. We got Covid.
- [19:55]
John Podhoretz
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- [23:43]
Seth Mandel
Nonetheless, we should at least acknowledge, by the way, that he wrote a Fox News op ed when the measles outbreak hit three weeks ago. Yeah, you know, it's up to you, but yeah, the measles vaccine will keep you alive instead of dead. Like that was, that was, that was basically what it, I think that's the.
- [24:05]
Abe Greenwald
One time he said, yeah, that was the one.
- [24:07]
Seth Mandel
That was, that was, that was, people were like, oh, well, he didn't say you should get the vaccines. Like, look, baby steps. RFK Jr. Said this vaccine is good and will probably protect you from the outbreak. So maybe he can be nudged far enough in the right direction to contain.
- [24:26]
John Podhoretz
But, but until then, like I say, there are, there are burger, there are burger joints all over America that could really use a helping hand and free advertising.
- [24:40]
Abe Greenwald
So that's ad number one.
- [24:42]
John Podhoretz
That's ad number one. So now let's go to ad number two.
- [24:45]
Abe Greenwald
Ad number two was the ad for Tesla on the White House lawn where President Trump having made a pledge to buy a Tesla. And I'll just note here, as of 8:22am on Wednesday, March 12, I've seen no evidence that Donald Trump has actually bought the Tesla. But he says he's going to buy a Tesla. And so Elon Musk arranged a variety of Tesla models to appear in the White House driveway and President Trump went out and inspected them along with Musk. Trump seems to have really liked the Model S, I believe it's a very sleek design and he got in it and he otherwise praised his, his buddy, the first buddy who also maybe just coincidentally pledged yesterday to spend about $100 million on Trump aligned political action committees and political outreach instruments and such. It was quite a scene on the White House lawn. And I think the thread between the two commercials, John, is that we have a Republican administration praising beef tallow and electric vehicles. And you might just wake up and say, how is this a Republican administration? But it's a sign of how Donald Trump has changed American politics and the Republican Party. That's the Republican coalition now, is a coalition that includes RFK Jr. And Elon Musk. And Trump is definitely leaning hard into that part of the Republican coalition where the more traditional parts of the Republicans are looking for shelter amidst the trade war.
- [26:43]
Seth Mandel
Also, I mean, there's a reason he's doing this with Tesla and that's because Musk's participation in his government is hurting Tesla's bottom line. And I think Trump wants him. Wants that, doesn't want that association. Right. He doesn't want it to be like, well, if you come work for the Trump administration, your stock plummets and, and things like that too.
- [27:06]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think he's turning it into a culture war symbol.
- [27:10]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [27:11]
Abe Greenwald
And that's so too.
- [27:12]
Seth Mandel
And I think the protesters are doing.
- [27:13]
Abe Greenwald
Now the left started it, right. Because there have been these cases of vandalism against Teslas or people who own or drive Teslas are being harassed, they're being called Nazis. So Trump is responding to that by appropriating the Tesla as a MAGA sign, which again is kind of ironic considering this is the man who rightly campaigned against and ended the electric vehicle mandate.
- [27:38]
Seth Mandel
If you want to be a good Republican, drive an ev. That's the obvious.
- [27:44]
John Podhoretz
It is more than ironic, it is the transvaluation of all values. Like there is a South park episode from 15 years ago where people who own electric vehicles are so proud of themselves for their virtue signaling that they literally smell their own farts like that they love their own fart because they're just so wonderful. That was the sort of, if you could say that, south park, weirdly enough, this part of the Republican coalition, kind of the south park conservatives that Brian Anderson wrote about in a book he published in the late 2000s. The notion of the virtue signaling capitalist purchase of high end luxury goods that cost twice as much as the goods that ordinary people can pay for in order to make themselves feel better. That this has migrated from left to right is a little vertiginous and it does not compute. It again does not fit with the fact that this administration got itself into power by saying it was going to lower prices and pay attention to what people who were suffering during the Biden years from the run up in inflation and prices, which does not affect people or affects people in very limited ways. At the highest end of the income scale, only people who buy Teslas, that this is where he's going. It's understandable. The Trump Musk relationship is becoming something psychologically peculiar to me. Musk is playing too large a role in Trump's mind. One thing for him to be used or deployed by liberals to talk about how Trump is the depredations that Trump is visiting upon the federal government and what people need from the federal government. But Musk has also occupied a significant amount of the brain matter of Donald Trump talks about him he has him praised there all the time.
- [30:04]
Abe Greenwald
He really likes him.
- [30:05]
John Podhoretz
Talks about him in the. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, he really likes him. It's getting weird, though. It's like, weird.
- [30:16]
Abe Greenwald
I don't think Trump has ever had this close of a friend, to be honest with you.
- [30:21]
John Podhoretz
So many friends. I don't hear that many.
- [30:23]
Seth Mandel
Remember when he men to make new friends?
- [30:27]
John Podhoretz
You know, it's true.
- [30:28]
Abe Greenwald
And when he first ran for office, I remember in 2015, people were all like, well, it's not clear who he's friends with. And there were like people from Palm beach that he kind of knew and there were people from New York that he kind of knew. Obviously, he was this very famous person. And I was just reading some account of a party in the. In the 90s. Oh. In an SNL oral history. And you know, Trump was at the party, just kind of hanging, you know, he was everywhere. But it wasn't clear he had any solid relationships. And now he does. Now he has this guy who just happens to be the most richest man in the world.
- [31:07]
Matthew Continetti
But they share a unique bond in that they are both so hated. That, I'm sure, is very horrifying.
- [31:17]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [31:17]
Abe Greenwald
The heat shield factor, I think, is real. And I think Trump understands that because.
- [31:22]
Seth Mandel
Of Elon's association with Trump. I mean, what. He wasn't really hated like this Elon.
- [31:30]
John Podhoretz
Oh, no, he was. He was, because Twitter was.
- [31:32]
Abe Greenwald
Twitter was the change.
- [31:34]
John Podhoretz
No, even before he went.
- [31:35]
Seth Mandel
I'm saying he went on Twitter when.
- [31:38]
John Podhoretz
He hosted Saturday Night Live. Musk. Which was. I don't even. 22, maybe 22. Half the cat people complain they didn't want him. He was. He was not yet on the right. He was not considered a right winger, but he was hated then, too. I'm not quite sure. I can't remember what the circumstances were. It may have been that he was like an oligarch or they didn't want to have this multi billionaire on or whatever. But writers.
- [32:09]
Seth Mandel
Only one of the regular cast members cry, right?
- [32:13]
John Podhoretz
No, but that was during the show. But hold on, let me see when this was. When did he go on snl? Oh, come on. One sec. This is impossible. Sorry. Okay. No, this is getting me confused because now it's all about Mike Myers playing him and I'm looking it up. Anyway, whatever is the case, he was already disliked by the main. By mainstream liberals in the early 2021.
- [32:48]
Abe Greenwald
2021.
- [32:49]
John Podhoretz
2021. Okay, so maybe I think he bought.
- [32:51]
Abe Greenwald
Twitter the next year.
- [32:52]
John Podhoretz
Right, Right. So he was not yet the owner of Twitter, but He was inveighing against PC a little. He'd already started talking about how PC was bad or stuff like that, but I don't know. I'm just saying he has been a disliked figure for many years in sort of the mainstream. And so the heat shield built up over time before he threw his cards in with, with Trump. Talk about the $100 million. Weird stuff is going on here. And this is yet another example of how the unbelievable failure of Democrats to take the measure of Trump in their war against Trump in the first term and to deal with him appropriately during the interregnum between the first and the second terms or to act in ways that were actually going to get him elected between the first and second terms have really backfired because there is stuff going on that would be potentially deserving of serious investigation into impeachment, like stuff that gets very uncomfortably close to emoluments, to trade offs of the President's time for money, stuff going on with his family, all of that. That is way more, what would you call it, nervy than the stuff that went on in the first term, which a lot of which had to do with whether people stayed at the Trump hotel in D.C. now, my view is that my guess is that Donald Jr. And various other members of the family who seem to be looking with investment firms and other things to take advantage of the Trump name have in their own heads, like, well, Hunter Biden. Look at Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden. Don't talk about, don't talk to me like I am, you know, I am too. Don't play this game with me. But nonetheless, things are getting very weird. And the relationship with Musk is a, is a walking, talking conflict of interest of a sort that we haven't seen in many decades in Washington. Right? Like in the 1940s when we were, when World War II was on, there were these famous industrialists threw in their hands with a, you know, threw in their cards with the administration to help win the war effort. Right. They were called the dollar a year men, people who led major industries who were brought in at a moment. We had a command economy to help organize the command economy, to build tanks, to do all that stuff. And they did not have a conflict of interest, weirdly enough, because they were not, because their own businesses tended not to be involved in the, in what, what was going on with, with this command economy. And they certainly weren't, you know, like profiteering in this, you know, not, not that Musk is profiteering, but this is not normal. This is really, really, really not normal. And the Democrats have completely. And liberals have completely made it impossible for them because of the Chicken Little problem.
- [36:08]
Abe Greenwald
Well, the Democrats go at it. They have no power, and the mainstream media has very little credibility. And so there are very few points of leverage against the current administration. And I think the Trump administration understands that. That's why this kind of mad scramble quality to the administration is happening. Because in the back of many Republicans minds, there's a sense that, well, we only really have two years before the Democrats have a real chance of taking the House of Representatives. And then if the Democrats have the gavels and have the subpoena power, well, then we know what they're going to do. They're going to launch all these investigations. They're going to go after Trump, they're going to go after Musk. So there's a kind of a hastiness to what the Trump administration is doing in every quarter, whether that's foreign policy, whether that's domestic policy, whether that's some of the political activity or financial activity that's happening, because there's always in the back of their minds, this kind of sword of Damocles hanging over them.
- [37:21]
John Podhoretz
Right. But that doesn't explain. So the other way you could look at it then, is that if they're profiteering, they got to shove all the profiteering into the first two years. Right? Because the next two years are going to be just investigation, like every single Congressional House committee is going to be investigating, and they're going to have more meat on the bones than the Russia investigation, which, of course, was a fraud.
- [37:44]
Abe Greenwald
Now, the problem is, as of now, as of, you know, we're about to have spring of 2025, the Democrats are nowhere close to getting their act together.
- [37:53]
John Podhoretz
So that's where we need to go now.
- [37:55]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. So that would be a problem if. Would be a problem for the Democrats and for people who are, you know, want less corruption in government. If actually the Republicans control the Congress throughout Trump's presidency, then there will be very little accountability.
- [38:13]
John Podhoretz
So, Ed, let's talk about this.
- [38:15]
Seth Mandel
I mean, I think on that subject, right? Hakeem Jeffries is a key player, right. The floor leader.
- [38:20]
John Podhoretz
So he's the minority leader of the House. He's the leading Democrat in the House.
- [38:24]
Seth Mandel
He's the leading Democrat now, is taking over for Pelosi, essentially, as the floor general. And his, his strategy pre Trump, pre. This election seemed to be just stand back, like Napoleon said, and let the Republicans spin out on their own and just don't get in the way, right? When Republicans were having what seemed like weekly votes over the speaker of the House and, you know, ousting speaker after Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries took some flak at one point for telling his caucus not to save Republican candidates for speaker, not to make a deal, not to just say, this is their problem. And for a while it worked because Republicans really were eating their own. I mean, Matt Gaetz started that whole process and they had that rule at the time where it took one person basically to get a sort of vote of confidence on the speakership. And Hakeem Jeffries was able to sit back and watch that happen. And that seems to be the thing that has changed, right? Trump. Trump is not Kevin McCarthy, for all you know, for his pros and cons, Trump operates in a very different way. He gives orders and people get in line and the party got in line and the party is doing things and it's gone in mere, you know, half a year from the type of party that can't elect a floor speaker to the type of party that is cutting like a hot knife through butter, through federal government, through every department and spending, going after universities, doing this that. I mean, you know, getting the ceasefire deal and the military saying we're going to take Gaza. I mean, it went. It turned into a machine. What feels like if you're Hakeem Jeffries overnight, and it. It makes his previous strategy completely irrelevant and he hasn't come up with a new one.
- [40:41]
John Podhoretz
Well, so let's talk culturally about the Democrats, not just procedurally, and we could talk a little about the continuing resolution or the keeping. Keeping the lights on in the federal government, but culturally, Democrats are off kilter, as far as I can tell. And the latest example of this is this seeming decision on the part of the mainstream media primarily, but also some politicians and then the kind of like the. The crowd, the Democratic leftist crowd, to take. Take up the cudgel for Mahmoud Khalil, the. The guy taken into custody by. By ICE for his support of Hamas on the Columbia and Barnard campuses. So today, as I'm speaking at 11:30 this morning, Judge Furman in New York will hear testimony or whatever we'll hear, try to make sense out of this question of Khalil's green card. Does that mean that Marco Rubio, under the 1950 provisions of law passed in 1952, has an UN. This is the word I cannot pronounce, unjusticiable right to expel.
- [42:15]
Abe Greenwald
That was good.
- [42:16]
John Podhoretz
Thank you. To expel this guy. There is no. There's nothing in the law governing these immigration statutes that provides the courts with review. Nonetheless, some stuff's going to happen here today that we don't know about. What we do know is that the New York Times and the Washington Post and the networks and all of that are effectively on Mahmoud Khalil's side. And they're not just on his side because they're saying he. He is noxious and a supporter of monstrosity. But this is a matter of criminalizing speech. And we, you know, if you go after him, eventually they can come after you. They're saying Trump is running roughshod over the law. And this guy didn't really do anything wrong. He didn't. He was never arrested. So because he wasn't arrested and he has a green card, he should. No one should say that he has done anything wrong. And he's the one who has been wronged here.
- [43:27]
Matthew Continetti
You know, this is one of those things that applies to liberals and conservatives, just in different cases, it applies to everyone. Americans love adopting that posture. They love being righteous about saying, I disagree with everything you say, but I'll fight for the death for your righteousness.
- [43:51]
Seth Mandel
Voltaire.
- [43:52]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [43:52]
Abe Greenwald
Like our mini Voltaires.
- [43:53]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [43:54]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [43:55]
Matthew Continetti
It is so satisfying. A hill to die on that. That's why I could see it. I see it catching now all around me in this case.
- [44:06]
Abe Greenwald
I'd like to introduce all these people to my friend Andrew C. McCarthy, who has written extensively now on the subject of Khalil in a piece for National Review, and now this morning in a piece for Fox News. And I think that Andy's read on the law is pretty clear that the government retains the right to deport a green card holder if the government views that green card holder as someone who is a threat to the country. And it's not a question of speech, it's a question of conduct and affiliation. And this, I think, is a pretty clear reading of the law.
- [44:47]
John Podhoretz
When you apply for immigration status, and of course, getting a green card requires an application. You have an application, you sign it at the bottom, like all government documents. Famous statute 1001, that means that if you lie on the document, you are committing a crime. And one of the many things that you have to testify to and maybe also in hearings is are you affiliated with authoritarian organizations who do not have the best interests of the United States at heart? And if you say, no, I am not affiliated with any such organizations or a supporter of any such organizations, you can move on to the next stage. Mahmoud Khalil must have Said, I have no such feelings. Therefore, he lied on his green card application, which is something that has not yet come up. But he is. He said, this is the famous thing, right? Are you a Communist? You cannot apply. You cannot have immigration stats in the United states in late 40s and 50s. A big thing. If you say that you support. They say, are you or have you. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party anywhere? Right? Say no. Do you support the aims of the Communist Party or of authoritarian organization? That was a way of getting in. Fascism and Nazism in there, too. So Andy doesn't even really quite get to this point, but he may have falsified his green card application, is my point. That's number one. Number two, apparently, according to the law, Rubio, the Secretary of State, has the power to make this determination that is, as I say, unjudiciable. Unjudicious anyway.
- [46:36]
Seth Mandel
But there is this one, indivisible with liberty and justice.
- [46:42]
John Podhoretz
Thank you. Yes, there is this one sentence in the law that Andy keeps citing that modifies this to some small degree. And because he is a green card holder, apparently the tradition has been to say that he has the right to a hearing before an immigration judge. Jesse Furman, the judge in this case, whom I have to. I am obliged by full disclosure to say, is a friend of mine and is somebody that I am personally associated with. Jesse Furman is not an immigration judge, but he is holding this hearing. So I guess he'll stand in for that. And fine. So the question. There is a. There is a question about whether or not the administration screwed up and how it approached this matter and didn't, as we said yesterday.its and cross its T's and make sure that they were arresting. They were. They were taking them into custody under the right rules because the ICE agents told Mahmoud Khalil that he was being brought in because he had violated the terms of his student visa, and he's not on a student visa. So they got it wrong. They didn't handle it right. And that's led to some of this confusion. But it will be very interesting to see because just because the law says the judge doesn't have a right, the judges can assert the right. And then an appeals court of the Supreme Court will have to be the final arbiters of this matter. But let's go back to the cultural question, which is, maybe I don't understand America anymore, and that's fine because I'll go crying in the corner about this, but are they crazy? This guy's a supporter of Hamas, by the way. Gallup says that Democrats now are more sympathetic to Palestinians than they are to Israelis. That was last week's shock poll. That's not Israel versus Hamas. That is the Palestinians writ large. I don't think that there is any polling data to suggest that Democrats support Hamas. People in Dearborn, Michigan, may support Hamas.
- [48:55]
Seth Mandel
No, they've asked this. I mean, Harvard has asked this question, and there's no.
- [49:01]
John Podhoretz
No, it's like 4%.
- [49:03]
Seth Mandel
Harvard specifically asks, you know, Israel versus Hamas. And yes, there's no. There's no support.
- [49:09]
John Podhoretz
He's got two. He's a member of two fan clubs, part of the Hamas fan club and part of the Hezbollah fan club. And what do we know about Hezbollah? 42 years ago, Hezbollah murdered 241 Marines in a barracks in Lebanon. So let's just be clear about this. They are handing Republicans the rope to hang them with. This is. This is a sticky issue. And if the idea is. And they're trying to get right on the border and on immigration a little bit here and there going into 2026, you want the Democratic Party liberals, you want to hand Republicans the thing where they can say, you know what Democrats really like or liberals really like? They love foreign nationals who support terrorism and, like, foment disorder and decay on campuses, blocking Jewish students from the right to walk into buildings and go to class and have class. This is a border. This is an immigration issue. It's not.
- [50:16]
Abe Greenwald
You know, what's even nuttier is it's almost unforced on the part of the Democrats. I mean, the Democrats could approach this and say, look, this is a complicated question. We want to make sure that people's civil liberties are respected. Everyone deserves the due process of the law. Let's see what happens. But instead, you have these tweets from the Democratic Party saying, free Khalil. There's no question. And so he's a political prisoner. So this rush to hug him is what's bizarre and completely unfortunate. They didn't need to do that.
- [50:55]
John Podhoretz
They could just say that, well, we're.
- [50:56]
Abe Greenwald
Going to follow the law. We want to make sure everything is good. We, of course, deplore what's been going on the campuses. No, not at all. They go to the extreme immediately. And it's not just on this issue. It's on the trans issues as well. I mean, there's just this almost this wish to fail on the part of the Democrats that they move toward these extreme positions so effortlessly. Now, clearly, they think they're in the right. You know, they have this sense their moral universe, such as it is, paints a picture where he is a political prisoner. But what you would hope for from a responsible political party is that someone there would say, well, let's just take a minute and understand that the way that the people who have the in this house signs on their front lawns don't actually represent the United States of America's electorate. And you would think that they would learn that lesson in November, but November haven't.
- [51:56]
Matthew Continetti
But this is, this goes back, I mean, to me, this is, this goes back 50 something years. Isn't this the same as celebrating the Panthers or other, you know, domestic terrorists or terrorist supporters or, you know, internal communist groups like, like they, they, it's their favorite thing is to embrace.
- [52:21]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. And look.
- [52:22]
Matthew Continetti
And look at the radicals who get caught.
- [52:24]
John Podhoretz
Look at the electoral consequences for the Democratic Party from the late 60s to the early 90s. Again, if you accept Watergate, because Watergate was this one off moment that, that, that, that sort of gave ectopic life to a Democratic party that was in an unbelievable swoon that lasted very, very briefly. So with the exception of gerrymandering nationally, Democratic Party lost an election by 25 points in 1972, won an election by a point and a half in 1976, lost an election by 10 in 80, lost an election by 20 in 84 and lost an election in 88 by 8. While the Republicans managed to win the senate back in 1980 with a 12 seat gain. Like that's the Democratic Party after it embraced its radical side after the 1960s. That's what I'm referring to now. We're not the same country. It's a set of different circumstances. History may rhyme, but it doesn't necessarily repeat. But yeah. However, I will say this one thing that makes me a little anxious. So Andrew Cuomo, as you may know, is running for mayor of New York City, you know, having resigned in disgrace because of charges of sexual misconduct though really because of his mishandling of COVID or his incredibly heavy handed handling of COVID which is what really turned people off to my view. He's now running as the common sense candidate, started a group to combat anti Semitism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And he came into the race last week. He has said nothing about Mahmoud Khalil. This is in New York City. This arrest took place, you know, 30 blocks from my house in New York City. That's Cuomo, who should be jumping on. This isn't. And that makes me.
- [54:27]
Abe Greenwald
He shouldn't be jumping on it because that by politically, the logic I laid out, he should not be jumping on it. So he's doing the politically smart thing of being silent.
- [54:37]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough. Okay.
- [54:37]
Seth Mandel
Or I think John is saying he could be play. He would be playing the moderate. He would be playing the sensible Democrat who's saying this guy is a bad guy. Why are you defending him?
- [54:47]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Or. Right. I mean, I don't know. I think his political strategy is to be everybody's second choice and a lot of people's first choice because we have ranked choice voting in New York. And that he expects to be to run up numbers in white ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten island to get him his party's nomination in June. And prudence has dictated to him that he, that he keep his mouth shut. And I don't know, that makes me nervous because it strikes me that it's kind of a gimme to say I don't really know. I don't know what the law here is. And I will abide. You know, I respect, judged for whatever. We'll see what happens. But what this guy stands for is disgusting and I hold no truck with it. He could have said that. He didn't. He isn't. Because I think he's worried. He doesn't understand what the shifting politics inside the Democratic electorate in the primary are going to be. And I trust politicians to take care of their own. What would you call it? Like, you know, they, they, they, they have animal cunning sense of what is and what is not, where they should stand at any given moment. And if Cuomo's animal cunning is telling him to, to keep out of it, I wish that were not the case. That does worry me about.
- [56:20]
Abe Greenwald
I would, I will. I, I don't understand what you're saying, but I would take his silence over him joining the Jackals League defending Collie.
- [56:29]
John Podhoretz
I do, I do, I do. But I just.
- [56:31]
Seth Mandel
There's another New York politician that we should talk about in this sense, and that's Chuck Schumer. Right? I mean, he, he, well, Chuck Schumer.
- [56:39]
John Podhoretz
Chuck Schumer has a book coming out about anti Semitism. So I just want you to know.
- [56:43]
Seth Mandel
Part of what is so bothersome about the Democratic response is epitomized by Schumer. And I think it's closely related to the point that Abe made about wanting to be able to say, Wanting to be able to defend someone you disagree with. So you, you know, you look reasonable. But, but Schumer's response was to say, I deplore antisemitism. I've been calling out anti Semitism and you know, I deplore everything this guy stands for. But, but, but, and there's, this is the part of the trend that we've seen now for 16 and a half months, which is you only get a denunciation of antisemitism from a Democrat if they're in the process of denouncing anti Arab or anti Muslim discrimination. Right. You wait until there's both sides.
- [57:39]
Abe Greenwald
You have to have both sides.
- [57:40]
Seth Mandel
Chuck Schumer didn't deplore antisemitism. He, he hasn't, he's been missing in action. He hasn't been good on this issue. He hasn't been stridently defending his people. We've been documenting that relentlessly at the website. He has, this is the opportunity for him to say, oh, by the way, antisemitism, but really it's because he's defending an anti Semite.
- [58:07]
John Podhoretz
Well put. Well put. We haven't talked about the having of the education of education. Yeah. Which apparently began this morning, 1300 people being laid off at the Department of.
- [58:18]
Abe Greenwald
Education, which, I mean, I now, I now know how many employees the Department of Education had.
- [58:25]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [58:26]
Abe Greenwald
I had no idea. 2600 people.
- [58:28]
John Podhoretz
For my pains, for reasons that I don't entirely understand, I do get POLITICO's Morning Illinois newsletter, the Illinois.
- [58:40]
Abe Greenwald
Are you sure it's not a USAID subscription, John? Are you part of the deep state cabal?
- [58:47]
John Podhoretz
I want to read to you what is here because I think it suggests why this is an, again like an absolutely brilliant populist political play. What's going on here? I, I know it'll look messy and it looks like Trump doesn't care about education. Republicans hate education. But I just want to read you the opening passage here and then we can, we can call, we can bring proceedings to a close today. Bringing the axe reports Shia Kappos, the author of the Illinois playbook. The U.S. department of Education's announcement Tuesday that it was firing more than 1300 workers drew a swift rebuke from Governor J.B. pritzker and education leaders across Illinois. Donald Trump is failing the test of leadership again. Instead of proposing any plans to improve math and reading scores, he's tearing down the Department of Education then making it harder for working class kids to get ahead, the governor said in a statement. Deeply harmful is how Illinois Education association president, that's the teachers union, Al Lawrence described the cuts to Illinois students. More than a thousand Illinois school districts receive Title 1 monies, which are Funds set aside to help schools with the most impoverished students. This money helps 960,095 students in our state, according to the association. And there's more. Okay, so the Department of Education has existed since 1979, I believe. And how, Matt, have these scores gone since 1979 down? How have the scores been since 19 since Joe Biden took over the government in 2021? Where is the National Association? There's a National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP on reading and math. This is money that has been spent, that has been spent badly at the federal level, has gone to nonsense and horror and bad guidance for schools. And if they want, Republicans have stayed away from this, even though they talk about it, we talk about it amongst ourselves, because they don't want to look like they're bad. On education, I think saying the status quo is unacceptable and that we need to do something radical about education is something that is, again, would be a 70% issue if it were polled.
- [61:08]
Abe Greenwald
You know, Republicans have actually been gaining an advantage on the issue of education since the pandemic, slightly even before the pandemic. And I don't think that the attempt to close the Department of Education and maybe even the successful attempt at, again, the rate that the administration is going, will harm those numbers. I mean, education is now, I think, separated from what the federal government does. People care about their schools if they go to a public school, of course, but there are so many other options. You have the growth now of education freedom movements in, I think, more than a dozen states now where the state government funds the student, not the school system. You have, of course, rising homeschools, different pods and modules, and the way people learn. I think American parents understand that the government is not going to provide their children an adequate education. And so they either have to demand the schools, their community schools, live up to high standards, or they're going to look elsewhere. And the global point, as our previous president might say, is that these structures have all failed. It's like Trump is coming in, he's uprooting everything. He has two years to do it. But the truth is, what has the Department of Education done? It's done nothing. Americans are dumb. I was complaining about this on Monday. They're getting dumber by the day. The more money isn't going to solve. It all goes to administrators. That's why the protest is so loud. It's their money. They don't want to see their money go away. They don't want to see the money that sustains a failing system go away.
- [63:01]
John Podhoretz
That's why they're upset right now. So we have two constituencies that the Trump moves speak to, which I think are interesting. One, as you say, are concerned parents who see that the schools are failing their kids. And then the other is the fact that there's an enormous number of people in this country now who don't have kids. They're not going to have kids. They don't have kids or their kids are grown and they don't have grandchildren because their kids aren't having kids. And they don't want their money spent on this either. Like it's their money, it's their tax money. Maybe they want it for themselves. Maybe they wanted to shore up Social Security, whatever. All that stuff you hear about when you hear that the teachers unions and Democratic politicians are saying that this is going to harm kids and that the obvious answer is prove it. You just had this enormous experiment where you guys were in charge of the school system and said, no, it's going to be fine. Right. For there to be a year worth.
- [63:59]
Abe Greenwald
Of schooling plus no school was fine for the kids and laying off people at the Department of Education would be bad for kids.
- [64:07]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I don't think that argument is going to be very successful. Fifteen years ago it might have been like Republicans stayed away from outside again of our precincts or talking about the Republican platform and stuff, tended to stay away from talking about closing the Education Department because it was too easy to hand this issue to their rivals to say you don't care about education, but it's increasingly not a huge deal to say you don't care about education because of the largely Democratic worlds.
- [64:40]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, well, all I would say is they do care about education and that's why the education establishment has to be overthrown and defunded.
- [64:47]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [64:48]
Matthew Continetti
The only aspect of this, I think that could, I'm not saying it will, could hurt Republicans is not, it's is less specific. I think, I think it's the idea that people do, are uncomfortable with dramatic large scale change like this. When they hear that, that a whole department is, is on the chopping block, people think, oh my, what, what's happening? I don't recognize the world. I don't recognize my country. This is, this is, this is aggressive and dramatic.
- [65:17]
John Podhoretz
But aside from layoffs, I mean, Americans have spent 20 years reading about layoffs. So if you hear that 1300 people are being laid off at the Education Department and you live in a place where people are laid off from companies and businesses and you have relatives who have been laid off and all of that number, it's not 100,000 people. It's 1300 people. It is startling because it doesn't happen in government hardly ever. But. But, you know, it's not. The number isn't like gobstopping.
- [65:51]
Seth Mandel
I mean, but, I mean, you know, you live like, I live in the vicinity right. Of D.C. area in a place where it's not D.C. i live in Maryland, but obviously lots of federal workers live out here. And, you know, we got. There was a note from one of the synagogue rabbis that went around a week or so ago about, you know, counseling and help and, you know, the process of, you know, mass unemployment and all this other stuff. It felt like a note that went out during COVID when everything closed and things like that. It also felt a bit like the fall of 2008, you know, when the housing market plummeted and things started going back. I mean, like, there was. If you live in certain areas, there is a feeling of, okay, the community needs help and services. And that makes feel like, you know, there. Maybe there's not a. Maybe there's not a recession nationwide, but you. Your town feels in recession.
- [66:50]
Abe Greenwald
I think the issue is that for 30 some years, our area, Seth, the DMV, the district, northern Virginia and Maryland has amassed so much power and wealth unto itself that it has become almost a separate country from the rest of the United States of America. And what is happening now is that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are treating the Metropole, the nation's capital, like the rest of the country for once. And that is. You're right, that's painful. But I don't think most Americans are going to say, oh, stop, stop. Because if you leave this nation's capital and its surrounding counties, you enter a very different country which has to deal with layoffs all the time.
- [67:45]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [67:45]
Seth Mandel
Well, that's a key point, right. Which is that the DMV has been immune to actual recessions in a way that the rest. Not only immune, hasn't been. So the feeling that a recession is descending just on these communities, for these communities, lots of nice people who are losing jobs. I mean, these are not, you know, they're not the ones who made Washington that way. But, yeah, for these communities, it's also. They may. It may not actually feel like past recessions, because past recessions may not have felt like this. It may be someone's getting a letter from, you know, from their rap, saying, whoever, if you need help, reach out.
- [68:21]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but the Metropole, the whole point is not only that it was a Museum. But that particularly after 2008, it was. Its wealth increased vastly because of in 2008 and from 2021 to 2025, the vast amounts of increases in federal spending disproportionately were spent in this relatively small area of about four, four and a half million people. It's not California. It's four suburban counties and the District of Columbia, which is a city of 500,000 people. And those counties, like one of them was poor when I lived there in the 1980s. Like Prince William county and Loudoun county in Virginia were not well to do.
- [69:11]
Abe Greenwald
Loudoun was a rural county in the.
- [69:13]
John Podhoretz
Loudoun was a rural county. These are now, I think among all those counties are among the top 10.
- [69:18]
Abe Greenwald
Loudoun's one of the richest counties in the country now.
- [69:20]
John Podhoretz
Right. So there's been a transformation by government spending.
- [69:25]
Abe Greenwald
And that's what the Trump phenomenon is about. That's why we have Donald Trump, because the rest of the country looks at this place and says, what are you doing?
- [69:32]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [69:33]
Abe Greenwald
And now finally, he is treating the Metropole as the rest of the country has been living since 2000.
- [69:42]
John Podhoretz
So let's see if he can make that case because of course, J.B. pritzker and the teachers unions are going to make the counter case. And so the argument has to be made.
- [69:52]
Abe Greenwald
People are fleeing J.B. pritzker State. The idea that somehow he is a model of governance is completely absurd.
- [70:02]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. And of course, of Chicago. Yeah.
- [70:05]
Abe Greenwald
Has a 4% approval.
- [70:07]
John Podhoretz
Approval rating.
- [70:07]
Abe Greenwald
Yes. We should listen to him.
- [70:10]
John Podhoretz
I know. Anyway, we need to, we need to go. But I do want to mention one thing, which is that the inflation numbers came out as we were talking, and it's the first good piece of economic news that Trump has had in the court, particularly given what's gone on in the last week. Inflation declined by 2.10of a percent, which is about 7% overall in this CPI reading. And so he at least is going to take some kind of a victory lap that his efforts are now having some positive effect on, on, on inflation. Even if he doesn't really deserve to take that victory lap. He would be, he would be getting. The world would come down on his head if it went the, was going the other way. Right. If it went up from 3 to 3.2.
- [70:57]
Abe Greenwald
This is good news for the Trump administration.
- [70:59]
John Podhoretz
It is very good news for the Trump administration. And so, you know, and as I say, we've been talking about the chaos for a week and the stock market declined and there may be a huge reversal in the stock market today. Because of the inflation number? Who knows? Anyhow, I don't think we have a recommendation today. So we will be back tomorrow for Abe, Seth and Matt of John Pot. Horace, keep the camel.