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- [00:01]
John Podhoretz
Will Talk to me. Abc Tuesday.
- [00:04]
Abe Greenwald
They took his daughter. She's coming home alive.
- [00:08]
John Podhoretz
Will Trent, the series critics are calling powerful Must see TV continues to thrill.
- [00:13]
Christine Rosen
Shouldn't we strategize before we go in there?
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John Podhoretz
If we screw up this case, a.
- [00:16]
Seth Mandel
Cop killer walks free with the riveting.
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John Podhoretz
Conclusion to a two part season premiere. TBI Help Me Get Down Will tread. All new Tuesday on ABC and stream on Hulu. Hope for the best. Expect the words some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for.
- [00:50]
Seth Mandel
The best, expect the worst.
- [00:55]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, January 17, 2025. I need to say that because of scheduling reasons, this will be the last podcast that we will be recording during the presidency and the era of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. What an honor it's been to live through this time, to analyze it, to view it, to scoff at it, to scorn at it, to worry about it. Thank you for joining us on this horrendous journey. And may we only see brighter days ahead. I'm John Podhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [01:41]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [01:42]
John Podhoretz
Our newly minted social Commentary columnist, Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [01:46]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [01:47]
John Podhoretz
And senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [01:50]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [01:51]
John Podhoretz
So as Biden goes out the door and Trump comes in the door, the only joint venture of the outgoing incoming Biden Trump administration, the ceasefire and hostage deal between Hamas and Israel, has now formally, as I am speaking, been approved by Israel's security Cabinet with a. I'm sorry, with a full cabinet vote to come in the next 24 hours, there will be a hostage deal. The first three hostages will come out on Sunday. The question that haunts me is whether the Israeli people are prepared for some of the possibly absolutely heartbreaking, heart rending, soul crushing news that will emerge when these early hostages come out, if they come out and their bodies, if they come out and their bodies and two of the bodies are the bodies of small children. The country which may have been living in hope in a certain way that a miracle would be achieved in the form of the lives of the hostages who have, who have survived this captivity. There may be very, very rough times ahead, including, by the way, the discovery by many of the hostages that family members of theirs were murdered on October 7 as they were being kidnapped and taken into Gaza. I mean, we know at least 20 cases in which that is the case. We don't know whether the hostages themselves know that their families were killed. You can imagine that Hamas might let them know just as a form of psychological torment and torture, since some of the latest information that we have that is now dribbling out is how the six people who were executed during the last rescue attempt in September were basically tortured as they were murdered. Word that Hersh Goldberg, Poland, who of course lost one of his arms, was shot in his other extremities before he was killed just to put paid on the evil that was done him, and that he should know that this was coming rather than a swift, quick execution. So the Israeli people want this. Clearly, the government's not going to fall. It's going to happen, and this is what they want, and maybe it's what they need. And as Dan Senor said on our podcast yesterday, Israel being in the strongest position it has been militarily vis a vis its enemies since 1967. If you were going to take a stab at doing something that might be momentarily militarily or strategically injurious, this would be the time to do it. I just don't know, psychologically, if Israel is prepared for the worst news that it could get, and that, of course, will have its own consequences. Maybe that's not something that is of all that much interest or really is a matter of concern in terms of policy making or in terms of how we as Americans should view this deal, which of course ceases all military operations for six weeks as the 33 of the 98 hostages are released, some of them dead, some of them living. Seth, you referred to this last night in a post on, on our website as Schrodinger's Deal. Do you want to, do you want to elaborate on what you mean by that?
- [05:48]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, it's, it's, it's happening, then it's not, then it's happening, then it's not. And we get, we seemingly get announcements that all the details have been ironed out. We use the word. I think the word iron has been printed in the news more this week than maybe in its entire existence leading up to this week. And then we hear that, well, there's maybe a problem so and so is discussing with so and so. And there's. But the problem with this process is that have to, by necessity, go through a series of interlocutors. And so what you're hearing is a game of telephone, then spun to you, the public. So when the Qatari foreign minister tells a friendly reporter that something is holding up the negotiations, there's no way to know how true that is or what that means. Besides for the fact that there is some delay. And so part of the frustration here, and this will go on, and I'll explain in a second, is the lack of knowledge of what is about to happen. And that will continue through the ceasefire, even if it is carried out, because the Israeli government has not been informed yet who among the 33 hostages for the first round of release are still alive. Meaning it's not just that we don't know, it's that Israeli government doesn't know. Hamas hasn't said. And the reports are that they'll get a report seven days into the ceasefire that will tell them who among the 33 are alive. And, you know, I give them reports and stuff like that. So there's, there's an element to this that is just no matter what we feel in the dark, and we feel like we can't trust it, and we feel like we don't know whether we can say for sure if something is happening, if the deal is alive or dead. That's the Schrodinger's deal. We, it, it all feels like until the moment it happens, we won't know if it was ever going to happen. And Israel has tried to do some things to smooth that out. One is there's unconfirmed reports in the media that Israel has demanded living hostages first. That doesn't mean necessarily all of the living hostages before all of the deceased hostages, but at least in the first, first eight days or so, the hostages that come out, they want to be alive. Precisely. John, because of what you said, the Israelis are thinking about this too. And the Israeli government has been thinking about this too, and thinking about how to soften the blow. And they understand that if the first hostages that come out are the bodies of children, it will change the way this deal is viewed and it will change the, it will immediately reduce the patience the public has for all of this. And it will cause some, you know, rebellion among the coalition. I mean, how, as you mentioned, how, how each stage of this hits the public emotionally is, is part of even the negotiations for the Israelis. That's how delicate this, you know, one.
- [09:34]
Christine Rosen
Of the things that strikes me about the, the last few weeks is how in, and I don't say this as a criticism, this is what happens when deal making, as Seth describes, especially, you know, multiple layers of communication channels, dealmaking goes on. Two things. One, the fact that the Biden administration and Tony Blinken in particular, are finally saying out loud what we all knew to be the case, which is that every time Israel came to the table Hamas screwed the deal. Now, they weren't saying that publicly, right. They had all these weasel words for describing why negotiations weren't working. And they'd often even blame Israel for not, you know, giving up enough, et cetera, et cetera. Now he's saying, saying more frequently as he's about to walk out the door, oh, yeah, Hamas keeps messing up the deal. He said it the other night, like, there are some things that have come up. But the second thing, and this is really crucial, the way that the public, not just the public in Israel, but particularly in the United States understands this conflict. We need to remind the public that taking children as hostages is in, that's crime. That's an international crime. Right? You're not supposed to hold taking anyone.
- [10:34]
John Podhoretz
Taking anyone, any hostage. This is the kind of, this, this. But this. But this elevates it to a kind of mythical crime. It's like Medea killing her children. I mean, right. It has a quality of. Yeah.
- [10:47]
Christine Rosen
And, and so we have actually established groups like the Red Cross and Red Crescent who will even work with terrorist organizations like Hamas to ensure the safety and the lack of mistreatment, treatment of hostages. And Hamas did not even allow Red Crescent in. To, to. This is why we don't know who's alive and who's dead. Because in this conflict in particular, a terrorist organization has dominated the propaganda war in the west with stories about genocide and all these sorts of, you know, reactionary responses. And we've, we've lost the plot when it comes to the actual people who are suffering here. And these are young children, these are babies. And we talk about it on the podcast. But I think stepping back and from a 30,000 foot view, saying, even if you're concerned about how Palestinians are treated, you should also be concerned with how Hamas has treated these hostages and the fact that the international community is just kind of sat on its hands and gone, well, what can we do? And this frustrates me because the taking of children, the taking of any hostages, as you say, but the taking of children in particular, what a horrific thing. And I think we've almost become numb to precisely what this group has done and the torment it has inflicted.
- [11:57]
Abe Greenwald
You know, this whole, the fact that we don't know who's alive and who's dead points to how sick this whole process is. That like, you know, what kind of negotiating partner is this that says.
- [12:15]
John Podhoretz
We.
- [12:16]
Abe Greenwald
Don'T, we're not going to tell you who's living, who's dead. You'll, you'll find out after you after you sign right there. This is a sickness. And they're maniacal, evil. And they have been elevated into this status of legitimacy in part by this process. I mean, not in our minds, but just the fact of their entering into this, that's what's so distressing.
- [12:50]
John Podhoretz
Forty years ago, it was the general policy of the west after events in the 1970s where negotiations with hostage takers and terrorist organizations by European nations, particularly Germany, Italy, some other places, led to the release that we've now seen Israel do subsequently, the release of prisoners, the escape from, you know, the escape from justice, the decision not to prosecute anybody in order to get the hostages out. None of which in Germany, in Italy's case, led to a cessation, a cessation of terrorist violence. Rather, there was an acceleration leading in 1979 to the murder of Italy's Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, by a terrorist group. And at that point, some of those, some of those principles, some of that shut down. The idea was the American position was we don't negotiate with terrorists. And that then a lot of European country, or the general sense was you can't, you know, this is empowering, more hostage taking, more terrorist activity. And things got, got tougher. And then of course, the United States started easing up on its own way that it was dealing with this stuff with the Iran Contra deal and various other mistakes that, that we made. And Israel itself started playing negotiating games with, in part because of the international atmosphere with the Palestinian, the plo, which was of course a terrorist organization that was, as Abe you say, kind of elevated into the status of a legitimate political actor after the Gulf War, leading to the Oslo Accords, leading to two terrorist wars conducted against Israel by, by the PLO after it was granted what everybody thought it supposedly wanted, which was a pathway to a Palestinian state. Turns out they didn't want a pathway to a Palestinian state. They want to destroy Israel and remain a thuggish goon squad terrorist group. Here we are, it's like 30 years later, and here we are again in a world in which a, a group that is arguably the worst terrorist organization that we've ever seen is now being treated. And this is the grief to me by the incoming Trump administration and its negotiator, Steve Witkoff, as a counterparty at a table. And they have their, they have what they want and Israel has what it wants, and everybody's got to give a little bit on either side. Just like if you were doing a real estate negotiation, you know, if you want $100,000 off, off the off the price tag, then you're going to have to pay for the renovation of the basement. That's not the person that's selling you the house isn't going to renovate the basement. You're going to have to do that. That's how we come to a deal. Everything is fine. Demoralize, demoralized. Don't treat this as though it was an emotional thing. Treat it as though you want to get to a deal. Well, again, I don't want to, like, indulge in sadomasochistic fantasy or something like that, but Donald Trump is going to say on Monday in his inaugural address that he has shown the world that even before he became president a second time, he was willing to do what's necessary to get wonderful things done. And he has freed the hostages. And if Sunday afternoon two or three dead bodies come out, or if that's what happens on Friday, a week from, you know, the next, the seven days after when the next tranche of hostages, of four more hostages come out and they're the B bus babies, how's that going to make him look? How's it Israel, Israel is, Israel is focused on this. You, you know, Christine, you're saying the world hasn't been paying attention. So Israel has been focused on very little other than the agony, aside from, you know, but it also. War.
- [17:17]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, it, it also is a missed opportunity for Trump. In this sense, treating, even by default, Hamas as a negotiating partner, as partner, as you describe, does in some sense give them a bit of legitimacy. But there's a broader problem going on here, and that's the defense of the west, the defense of Western civilization. And I am being hyperbolic on purpose. Islamic terrorism is spreading around the globe not just in, is not just on Israel's borders, not just in Iran, but in Western Europe, in, in. We've seen, you know, terrorist acts in the United States, again, on the home, in the homeland, motivated by Islamic terrorism. And I remember, you know, post 9, 11, there was this really concerted effort on both sides of the political aisle to say, we need to understand how this happened. Why do they hate us? Remember that? But Islam is a religion of peace. And so we don't. We want to really just walk this very fine line. We are at a moment now civilizationally, where I think we need to be a little more firm in what we're up against and what we, what our values are, because we assumed everyone understood our value. Values. Our values are in disarray. I think the Biden administration's term is a good example of that domestically. But on the global stage, nobody knows what America stands for anymore. And so this is an opportunity and inaugural address is exactly that moment where a president can say, here is what we stand for. And we, it's not that we're going to go around and, you know, spread democracy everywhere, but everyone in this world, our enemies and our friends, should know what we value and what we stand for. And I fear he is perhaps not the person for that moment. I hope I'm wrong. But this is a broader war. It's not just happening in Israel, it's happening across the globe.
- [18:51]
John Podhoretz
It's a broader war because it's on our borders. Right. One of the, one of the things that people worry about in terms of the open border is whether or not terrorist groups are using the open border to pre position people in the United States to take, to commit terrorist acts. The Trump people, people who are very concerned about, you know, this, about illegal immigration and the border, talk about this, talk about it all the time. Talk about how Venezuela, you know, maybe sending people up north with those caravans and who knows where they're from and what their, what their, what their ultimate aim is. And yet there is still a commitment to a certain type of isolationist rhetoric on the part of at least maga. Trump is a slightly different matter. I mean, his isolationist rhetoric now is largely taking the form of economic isolationism in the form of, of, of, of, of tariff impositions, where it's like, you know, the world is a zero sum game. Either you pay to get into our markets or we're, or our taxpayers pay. And so we're going to make you pay and then we'll take from you. And as opposed to the idea that, you know, economic growth and the, the intermingling of economic assets across the world.
- [20:15]
Christine Rosen
But this is really important. I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is the thing where Reagan did this very well, right. We talked about economic wealth and capitalism and, you know, being a good thing. But there were also, there was a values argument he made as well. I feel like Trump's transactionalism is very much talking about the money piece of that, but not the values, except for these vague feints that, you know, make America great again. I want to hear that values piece for his second term. I want to know what he thinks this country stands for and where its place is in the world.
- [20:42]
Abe Greenwald
Well, I think, you know, it's an excellent point, and I think what Trump and Biden share is that their, their fallback position is Diffuse, diffuse, diffuse. At all costs. We don't want, we don't want to stir up Putin, we don't want to stir up a wider regional war. You know, it's this choice between expediency and morale and values. And that's. There's, there's, there's no happy middle ground. I mean, you take it.
- [21:20]
John Podhoretz
So 10:00am at 10:00am today we're recording this. It's about 9:00 in the morning. At 10, the Supreme Court is apparently due to release its decision on the law, on the constitutionality of the law, that said that Tick Tock must, must sell itself if it is continue working inside the United States. Note when you talk about. Diffuse, diffuse, diffuse that for. For three years, Tick Tock has been a target of Republican conservative. You know, TikTok's bad for people. It's collecting massive data on people. It's a Chinese Communist Party adjunct that has this cutout company in the United States that supposedly owns it, but we know it doesn't really. And so as a matter of national security, TikTok needs to be sold and no longer the property of the Chinese government. The Chinese government basically says, we're just going to close it down. We're not even going to sell it. Which seems psychotic, right? Because it's probably worth tens of. At least you might.
- [22:25]
Christine Rosen
It does give the game away for what Tick Tock is. Purpose. The purpose of Tick Tock.
- [22:29]
John Podhoretz
Right. Why do I bring this up? Because Donald Trump, you know, defending America, you know, in a, you know, in a world gone mad, changed his tune on Tick Tock. Has the CEO of a U S. TikTok coming to sit on the dais behind him at the inaugural. I don't know what's going to happen if the decision goes the way of the. The law is. The law that Congress passed and that Biden signed is constitutional and therefore must go forward and really understand is Trump then going to have the guy behind him whose company, by law and then by Supreme Court fiat, has been ruled a sufficient danger to the US national security that it can no longer operate in the United, United States sitting next to Elon Musk and, and Jeff Bezos. That's not, that's not good. Why did he do it? We know why he did it. Jeff Yass, huge fundraiser for him, billionaire guy, big investor in TikTok, told him not to do it. Bring this up. Only to say that the idea of infusing that even Trump's America first, which has a moral frame to it. Right. I mean, it goes Dates back to the Washington's farewell address. Right. We entangling alliances in the world are going to corrupt us. You know, we are a new nation with new value, new, new ways of looking at things, and we cannot get ourselves dirtied by the rest of the world. That's one of the foundational ideas of the United States that we have been fighting over for, you know, almost, you know, 240 years. So he is there with the moralism about how they're taking our jobs or this, you know, we need to be our own and have our own. And because, because that, that evokes Washington's idea about America's exceptionalism. But then, you know, he's just willing to say, now it's fine. TikTok's fine. I don't, I don't want you to do this. Jeff says it's a bad. My friend Jeff says it's a bad idea. I trust him. I don't know who all these people are. Meanwhile, like major figures in his party were supporters of his, like Tom Cotton and others. You know, they, they believe that Tick Tock is a. Tom Cotton, now head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believes that Tick Tock is a present danger to the United States.
- [25:02]
Christine Rosen
And he's absolutely right about.
- [25:04]
John Podhoretz
So Trump, Trump is only entering office now having within two transactional alterations of his view, one of which was they better let the hostages out. So first of all, they're not letting the hostages out. They're going to let 33 hostages out in six weeks, 10 of them are likely to be dead. 65 will remain in. He didn't get them out. Biden didn't get them out. On the day of his inaugural, three are going to get out. On the day of Reagan's inaugural, 52Americans were released by Iran, all of the hostages. So if that is his model, he failed. He did not get what he wanted. He is a, he is a piss ant. Reagan in this regard, right? He got.
- [25:45]
Seth Mandel
But I think there's, there's also.
- [25:47]
John Podhoretz
He got a 13th of what Reagan got. It's mazel tov to him.
- [25:51]
Seth Mandel
It's not just values, though, which is half the problem. The other half of the problem is that Trump's vision for America first includes a lot of. That's not our problem. That's the other half of this, right? It's. There's the values part, which is what do we believe and what are we trying to defend? And then there's the. Whether or not we believe this, is it any of our business to get involved and to defend it. Should we be defending the Western Democratic alliance in Ukraine? Right. He may believe one thing, but do another because of this idea that we don't want, you know, that it's not sort of none of our concern. And there's a lot of the none of our concern stuff floating around. And I, the worry regarding the hostages is that the American hostages come out and then there's all dozens of hostages left. That it becomes less his, less of his problem, less of his concern for a guy who is quick to say that sort of thing.
- [26:58]
John Podhoretz
By the way, there is no indication that the American hostages are going to be among the first to come out. There is a list of hostages. We don't know what the order is, but if you look at the list, the, the, the priority is women and, you know, women and children and the elderly. And that's not the American hostages. Most of whom are, most of whom, what are there 6 left, 5 left are supposedly military age men, so meaning that they are then viewed almost as soldiers, even if they're not in the, if, even if they were not in the military.
- [27:34]
Christine Rosen
But this, this, this issue of not our problem actually has very, I think it's important because it has a very long tail and you see it in the sort of MAGA side of republicanism saying we know how to solve this problem, we'll just get rid of all of dei. Now, as all our listeners know, we are not fans of all the DEI regimes. But that misses the broader civilizational challenge, which is that those problems that are declared, not our problems are here anyway. They're on college campuses where both faculty and students are saying, tear down Western civilization. They're there every time a statue of one of the founders is torn down in some angry mob. And again, this is a bit of hyperbole. This isn't happening every day. But the challenge, the problem is already on our own home front. So if the idea is, yeah, we don't care about Ukraine, we don't care about the Middle east, we care about what's going on at home, it's all connected now because the ideology that is fueling Hamas is the same, has very similar principles to the anti western ideology we see on our college campuses. And as much as people don't want to acknowledge that the people who are supporting regimes like Hamas, terrorist groups like ISIS on college campuses, they will tell you to your face that they do support that. They think the west is evil and they feel they are in a civilizational battle.
- [28:49]
Unknown Speaker
It's cold.
- [28:50]
John Podhoretz
It's cold out there.
- [28:51]
Unknown Speaker
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- [30:30]
John Podhoretz
So the holiday rush is over.
- [30:33]
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- [32:50]
John Podhoretz
Look, Seth brings up the, you know, well, you know we don't have, you know there are things we want, we might want to care about but you know, it's not our problem or we have, we have to deal with problems here at home. That is to be fair that that calculation is the calculation of all American post war foreign policy. How much do we do in theory we are for democratic movements in every country in the world. We are opposed to totalitarian countries. Totalitarianism is a, has a kind of internationalist, globalist connection. All these countries are the same. They all deal with each other. They're all our enemies. To Christine's point, we are a civilizational bulwark against them. They wish to destroy us. But from 1956 onward America has had to make choice after choice about how far it was willing to go to intervene to advance this more. This broader or more, I don't know, theoretical interest. Like do we. Does it matter to us if the Hungarian people are being oppressed in 1956? Yeah, it matters. Does it matter enough for Dwight eisenhower to commit U.S. forces to help the Hungarian revolution not be overtaken by the Soviets? No, because the Soviets have nuclear weapons. We don't know what the consequences are. Or atomic weapons then I guess I don't even know. I can't remember where we were on the atomic versus nuclear scale here. But we don't know what the, what the, what the consequences are. And it's the risk is not worth the reward. We have had that throughout the last 80 years. It is part of every Kantzka calculation.
- [34:41]
Christine Rosen
But with one difference now. And this is actually where TikTok and other social media Platforms are important. The ideological and cultural war that is being waged by our enemies in, into the minds of most Americans, particularly young Americans. That is very new because the propaganda war that happened during the Cold War was real, and people who try to downplay it are lying to you. And there. And it did have some negative effects on cultural social life in the United States. But now actually, we don't even want to acknowledge that this is a form of warfare. It is a propaganda war. It is highly effective, and it's very difficult to combat in the sort of traditional ways we used to combat those sorts of wars. So that's, again, that's why I know I'm a TikTok friend.
- [35:22]
John Podhoretz
No, no, but you're absolutely right. But I think my, I don't view Trump as somebody who actually looks at this and says, you know, we want freedom in China. I don't think he cares. No, that's true about freedom in China. He genuinely doesn't. And by the way, I, I think he should. He doesn't. A lot of people don't. A lot of people think this is not something that we should or, you know, they have a different civilizational structure and, you know, they don't have our ideas and they're not born in our culture. And so this idea that, you know, freedom comes as God, you know, is given to us by God, and that every person is as free as every other person is very much is not a global idea. It certainly doesn't govern Confucian thinking, it doesn't govern Hindu thinking. It doesn't govern all kinds of religious thinking everywhere. The kind of, the idea that all people are equal in the eyes of God or are infused with liberty given by God. It's clear that Trump doesn't believe that. So, okay, I get that. And he won the election and he made a lot of that very clear. And he gets to, he gets to work out his foreign policy the way that, you know and see where, where it, where it goes. I don't think it's a successful way to pursue this, but. Okay, so I'm just saying, like, I think then the question is Trump thinks he wants scored a big victory in, in, in this deal. He may be disabused of that notion by the, by world reaction to what we're actually going to see over the next six weeks.
- [37:02]
Abe Greenwald
I'm not sure. I mean, because we can be more in the weeds than we realize we are. I hate to describe what you're talking about is in the weeds, but.
- [37:13]
John Podhoretz
No, you're right.
- [37:14]
Abe Greenwald
I think people see hostage, hostage, hostages released, and they go, oh, that's good. What's for lunch? You know, kind of thing. The history that you described, John, about the sort of choices that America has faced since the war is totally accurate. But there always comes along someone who says, ooh, this is none of our business, must be taken as an ironclad first principle. That's the way we have to proceed. And that's what we've been getting wrong. And this will solve all of our international problems and some of our domestic problems. And that's always wrong when you. When you. When you are inflexible on that point. Just as, by the way, there are people, and I know them, who are like, no, we must always intervene.
- [38:06]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [38:06]
Abe Greenwald
I think I used to be one of them. Yeah, that's wrong, too.
- [38:10]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [38:11]
Christine Rosen
This has been an episode of Commentary Confessions with you.
- [38:14]
Unknown Speaker
No, no, no.
- [38:15]
John Podhoretz
But I think a very important point relating to Ukraine here, which is Ukraine does not exist in a vacuum, by which I mean this is a war that's been going on for almost three years now. And the Ukrainians have shown an extraordinary capacity to suffer losses and to embarrass and humiliate and make life incredibly difficult for Russia. Had that not been the case in 2022, had Russia marched through Ukraine, the idea that we should be supporting Ukraine to the best of our abilities and all that, that would have faced this real world test. Ukraine would have failed it. Russia would have succeeded. It is actually a weird refusal to look at the world as it is and things as they've gone to say, I didn't care about Ukraine in 2022, I don't care about it now. It's not our business. And you know what else? I don't like that guy. I don't like the cut of that Zelensky's jib. I hear he's mean to Christians because he believes that the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is a spy network for Moscow, which it is. Yeah.
- [39:35]
Seth Mandel
Where would you get that idea?
- [39:36]
John Podhoretz
Okay. Anyway, I'm just saying that, you know, so. So this kind of thing happens, and what happens in Ukraine, what has happened, does not budge and may even stiffen the resolve of people who thought, in 2022, this is not our fight and this is not our problem. Sometimes opportunistically, we could say, you know what? Giving Putin a lot of trouble over here is a way of making sure that he doesn't make trouble over here. It's good for us and the west at very low cost, for Putin to be bogged down in Ukraine if the Ukrainians are willing to suffer the burden of being the boggards downers and being the ones who are getting killed by Russia. And that's where the MAGA stuff starts getting counter ideological. It's like it's not about the world as it is and you guys are all psychotic idealists who have globalist fantas. It's more like why aren't you looking at the way things are and saying again, risk reward calculation. This is a low risk, high return operation for us. We don't have to spend very much money and we're getting a big return for it. Just like we could make this claim about Iran now taking out Iran's nuclear program and its oil export facility so that it can be crippled as a, as a force for bad in the world is now as low cost as it will ever be or as any such threat has ever been. Are we going to look at this realistically and say let's do it but and the issue, I think isolationist thinking has a more religious and ideological frame than it claims to have.
- [41:28]
Christine Rosen
Okay, so what will happen with Taiwan? The Taiwanese are not going to fight back like the Ukrainians have and they are reliant still on Chinese energy. So China can just cut, basically pull the plug and just wait, what will we do then? Because a lot, I think a lot of the, the arguments that were made in Magaland against Ukraine, I mean what are they going to do when you know, our trading partner are here's China, big footing into Taiwan. What will the response be? That's actually, I think where you do need a values based response which is you can't just go into this region. I mean right now we're, you know, we're monitoring the sea there but they can do that at any point. And how will a Trump MAGA world view of things highly transactional, high, very much about, you know, deal making. How does that work in the case of Taiwan? I don't know.
- [42:19]
Seth Mandel
I also think by the way to add to that there's the, there's the problem of we have been guaranteeing, you know, we have been overseeing the American led world order and a lot of the sort of MAGA America first isolationist people don't wish that hadn't been the case. But it has been the case. Right. So we were the ones who negotiated the Ukrainians giving up the what would have been the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world in you know, 94 was it and in return put them under our Security umbrella. Right? That was. It was in the deal and it was a good idea as long as everybody upheld their end of the deal.
- [43:09]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [43:09]
Seth Mandel
It was. We didn't know what Ukraine was going to turn out to be. There, there were nukes and, you know, under the ground in like, Kazakhstan and places were making us crazy. We didn't have time to say, like, well, 30 years from now, we feel like, you know, there might be a Jewish president of this Jewish, anti Putin, pro democracy president of the. It was just like, clean it up. The world has nukes lying around. Clean them up. So the deal was and remains the right idea. But if you just sort of leave your own responsibility, if we don't uphold it, there's that. Then there's what I think Christine was also sort of getting at, which is like, people watch this and say they didn't hold up their end of the deal on Ukraine. If I'm Taiwan, they didn't hold up their end of the deal on Ukraine. If I'm in the Middle east, they didn't hold up their end of the deal on this or that. There's this other question of if you are America thinking in the America first frame, what do you do with the responsibilities we have already taken upon ourselves, the deals we have already agreed to, and the obligations we are already on the hook for?
- [44:19]
John Podhoretz
That's a very brilliant little analysis there, because I just had this very vulgar analogy to offer, and it's like this. So we made this deal in 94. We said, we're going to make sure that you are not going to suffer for, you know, you are not. Your territory is secure. You give up nuclear weapons. We're going to make sure that, you know, your, your country survives. That was 30 years ago. Okay, so let me, let me just com. Compare this to something that happened in New York Real in real estate terms, because it'll help Trump as a, as an understanding of Trump. 1972, the New York Philharmonic sells the naming rights to Philharmonic hall to a man named Avery Fisher. Philharmonic hall becomes Avery Fisher Hall. I don't know what he gave the money named avery Fisher Hall. 25 years later, something like that. They want to redo Philharmonic Hall. They wanted to redo Avery Fisher Hall. So the idea is, you know what, let's rename, let's sell the name again. We'll sell it to David Geffen. He'll give us $100 million. We'll rebuild the hall. Now it'll be David Geffenhall. Avery Fisher's family says, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, A minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. He gave you all this money in 1972. You renamed it Avery Fisher Hall. They said, we've gone through the contract, and actually the words in perpetuity didn't appear in the contract, or some version of that. Or maybe they appeared, but there's also another phrase that says something else. And, yeah, go ahead, take us to court. Let's see what happens. We need the money. So if you're gonna. Now, this small lesson in world, you know, in sort of like pragmatic world, fundraising would say, everybody from now on who gets naming, who. Who is, you know, in Kansas City names the performing arts center, better have a lawyer make sure that it says this name will be on the building for 150 years, or you're not going to give the money in the first place, because it didn't occur to anybody that this was necessary. Just like the word of the United States was gold. Well, guess what? It turns out it's not gold anymore, because for transactional reasons, we don't want to stand behind the promise we made in 94. And I wasn't alive then, and I, you know, I was. I don't know what I was. You know, I was in bankruptcy in 1994 because of what I did in Atlantic City. I wasn't even in politics. What do I know? I don't have to. I don't have to hold to the deal that we made in 1994. Well, you kind of do. You really are supposed to, but. All right, who's going to make you? I mean, it's. It's so. Again, that's a very vulgar way of looking at it, but it is like, either you believe in sacrosanct promises and that the full faith and credit of the United States has to stand behind promises, even ones that you don't like anymore because of more abstract understanding of what sovereignty and nationhood and leadership and all that are, or you're just. It's year one when I enter politics, and nothing that happened before me do I have to give a crap about. And that's where Trump is a danger, if he's a danger. And that's why, you know, maybe it can lead to very creative thinking. You're not. You're not in the hammerlock of the Biden world, in which Biden's like, well, in 1973, I met with so and so and so. Therefore, I know that you can't, you know, he can't change anything up in. In. In sort of conventional, you know, foreign Policy thinking.
- [48:12]
Abe Greenwald
I just want to say what's fascinating to me though, is that among our allies, our international allies and people in the know in their governments and whatnot, and this is something I've experienced firsthand in a number of countries and it's kind of been startling to me, includes Ukraine, includes the, the Kurds back in the, in the Bush days. They see America as unreliable on this long term question of keeping promises from administration to administration. They are very savvy about that. They love us anyway. They do because they've sort of already internalized and reckoned with that is we understand what America stands for and we understand the reality and we don't fall in love with any given politician. We have to. Playing the long game means understanding that this happens in the U.S. well, this is.
- [49:23]
Christine Rosen
So that's when values used to undergird the transactionalism that has always occurred in foreign policy. And actually the Abraham Accords are a good example of value and transactionalism. Getting some of those countries to the table and saying, hey, economically this is a good deal for you. Here's all the reasons why you should open up your relationship. And it worked. I think the problem now, and the horrifying example I'll give is all of those people who we paid to serve as our translators in Afghanistan, who the Biden administration utterly abandoned to death, to destruction the minute he decided to do that disastrous pullout. We had a transactional relationship with some of these citizens, but we also had a value which was if you do this for us at your at risk to yourselves and your families, we will make sure that you're taken care of if things go south. And when it came time for us to in, we loved the transaction. It benefited us and our troops. The minute we had to actually stand by our values, we abandoned those people. And there, there are lots of examples like that in the recent past that I think Trump needs to attend to when he starts thinking about what, what are MAGA foreign policy values and who in his administration is going to be the person or people who, who are the ones promoting them.
- [50:35]
John Podhoretz
Can I, can I jump in with a, with an early, with a. Within early Commentary recommends based entirely on what you said spontaneously because of the story you, because of the Afghan translator story. I really do want to recommend a remarkable movie that I don't think very few people have seen came out two years ago called the Covenant made by Guy Ritchie, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as, as an American, as a Green Beret master sergeant who goes back into Afghanistan to rescue his translator who had rescued him, who had saved him after an ambush. It's a remarkable movie and it is really, it's a personal story. It's not a geopolitical story. But it has, as all such things does have a deep moral component. Very surprising movie given the person who made it, Guy Ritchie, who is a very unserious and gimmicky and jokey filmmaker. This is his like only earnest movie Gyllenhaal is remarkable in. And anyway, I really do think given since we're having this conversation, people should, should see the comet. It's gripping. It's, it's a thriller. It's not, you know, like foreign policy lecture. It's a gripping, thrilling, you know, American Sniper, like Lone Survivor, like, you know, Adventure Store adventure rescue story that I think is really very well worth your time. Let's move on to the, to the waning the last three days of the Biden administration. There was a big story in the New York Times this morning about from the perspective, told largely from the perspective of Chuck Schumer, the now blessedly gone, now no longer Senate majority leader, my senator, disgrace, immoral, sellout guy, hypocrite, just beneath contempt person. So you know how I feel about him. Anyway, he tells the New York Times the story of what really happened when it was time that leadership of the Democratic Party believed that Joe Biden had to step down in, in July of 2024 after the disastrous debate in June. Abe, you want to give people a flavor of what?
- [53:15]
Abe Greenwald
Well, it's quite juicy because among the things that, that jumped out of it for me, one was that it reveals that Chuck Schumer had been in a panic of sorts about Biden's abilities before the debate. And he viewed the debate, as the piece says, as a gift because he was scared to speak the truth to Biden or to others. And he was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the public facing notion that Biden's great and doing just fine. So he viewed the debate as a gift. Now he could now he had to face Biden and say what he had to say. And I also, I also appreciated the because the whole thing is about he went from Brooklyn to Delaware to Biden's house to have this one on one with him and to say, you know, you got to, you got to drop out because you'll, you'll, you will, you will lose all the beautiful work we've done and worse, you'll go down in history as a dark figure, one of.
- [54:28]
John Podhoretz
The darkest figures in American history. Is the phrase he says he used with Biden. Remember, what's important about this story as we talk about it is that Schumer is the sole source. There are anecdotes here where there's nobody else in the room. And Schumer, just to put it in, I believe in the most, the highest. And, you know, I want to. I want to really be Shakespearean. Here is a bullshit artist, a very high order. And like, you can't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. I don't know that any of this is true or how or that the anecdotes are true. Perfect. Perfectly willing to believe that none of it is true. But he wants you to think that it's true. So then the question is, why does he want you to think it's true? Anyway, Go ahead.
- [55:11]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and then. So one of the juicier moments was when Schumer was discussing the issue with Barack Obama. And Obama said, look, I'm not the guy to tell Joe Biden he's still. There's a lot of. He has his backup. He has a chip on his shoulder. There's a lot of, like, handling Biden's temper in this piece. And Obama says he still has a chip on his shoulder over my picking, you know, choosing Hillary over him, you know, to lead to as the. As the next Democratic nominee, which we always knew but hadn't. I love to see it there. Like that hadn't penetrated. Because I'm remembering back to the 2020 election when Biden and Obama had this sit down. They were like buddies. Do you remember this? Like, this little conversation they had just before between the two of them that was released to reinforce the idea about how close and they were and whatnot. Meanwhile, jump to 2024 and Obama's still like, I'm not the right guy to approach him with this, believe me.
- [56:24]
Christine Rosen
Well, this is the temperament point is important both for. So I actually, my theory is that while Biden is doing. Biden and Jill Biden are both doing this desperate legacy burnishing in the last, you know, the waning weeks of the administration, because these are the people, remember, who were constantly tweeting like, character is on the ballot, decency is on the ballot. And now it's kind of a desperate cry for help, Schumer and other Democratic Party leaders are doing a little bit more nuanced effort at reputation management and revising the historical record as well. Because when you think ten years from now, when someone goes back to assess Schumer's legacy during the Biden administration. This is the big piece Schumer wants them to read first to shape and frame how they're going to understand his role rather than, oh, my God, he was another one of these guys covering up for the mental and mental and physical decline of the Commander in Chief.
- [57:14]
John Podhoretz
I mean, look, we knew that Pelosi was going for Biden's jugular around the time this story took place, right? Because someone interviewed her and said, should Biden stay in the race? And she said publicly, that's a decision he is going to have to make for himself. She did not say, yes. She did not say he had already.
- [57:32]
Christine Rosen
Said he was staying in the race. That's why it was shit.
- [57:34]
John Podhoretz
Right? Okay, so. So Jill Biden complained about Nancy Pelosi in this interview she gave to the Washington Post on Wednesday where she said, I thought she was our friend. It's like, well, you know what? As Harry Truman said, you want a friend in Washington, get a dog, number one. And number two, she's your friend. Your husband is President United States and is senile and you are a power hungry, power mad lunatic. What kind of friend? You're now claiming that you were betrayed by your friend. Maybe you betrayed the United States, lady. Maybe you should, like, step back a minute and think about what it is that you're saying. So Pelosi was willing. She didn't quite stab him in the front, right? I mean, she kind of stabbed him in the side or kind of like on the shoulder.
- [58:30]
Christine Rosen
But in the realm of politics, she was the most honest at that moment. She was the one who was being honest, right?
- [58:36]
Seth Mandel
I mean, she pushed him out a window in Prague is what she said.
- [58:39]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, exactly. Okay, so what's fascinating about this story on the part of Schumer is Schumer saying, I went to him privately and I said some very, very hard things that probably really made a difference. And what he is not addressing and what Pelosi is not addressing and what nobody is addressing is they knew a year earlier that he couldn't possibly be President of the United States and shouldn't be then. And think about the one person in the Democratic Party who was willing to put his money where his mouth is, an obscure congressman named Dean Phillips who stood up, said, I'm going to have to run for office. I don't have a prayer. I have to run for President because somebody in this race has to say, Biden is not mentally fit to be President of the United States. And what they did to him and what the liberal media did to him and the way they treated him, the one honest man in his party. Right. That's the story that needs to be told. And Schumer saying that he said after the debate, oh, you got to get out of the race. Wow, what bravery, what courage, what, what fortitude it took him. And I just want to read the concluding section here after he says, you know, the darkest and all of that. Biden says, I need a week after, after he, and he, and he, he says the hard stuff as he ushered Mr. Schumer into a small elevator to exit the house. By the way, why does Schumer need the elevator? Guess who needs the elevator? Biden can't apparently even.
- [60:32]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, this is at the, one of the beach houses.
- [60:33]
John Podhoretz
So Biden apparently can't even go up and down stairs is what I'm learning from this. Okay. The president put two hands on the senator's shoulders and offered a quintessentially Biden esque bit of hyperbole. You've got bigger balls than anyone I've ever met, he said. The two embraced as Schumer headed back to his car, where he broke down in tears as he recounted the meeting to his aides. We don't know that this happened. The story doesn't even say according to Mr. You know, according to Mr. Schumer.
- [61:07]
Seth Mandel
Or we don't know if this happened. I would be very confident in saying we know this didn't happen. This isn't a romance novel. This is, you know, this is his senator spinning what happened. And, you know, the, the, the reason he's doing so is because, and I'm guilty. You know, I, I wrote something along these lines, too. But after Pelosi, you know, cleaned off, pulled out the knife and cleaned it off and put it back in its sheath, she, you know, she was the one who got the headlines about, you know, having the intestinal fortitude in the party. She was the one who, everybody was saying, you know, she will, if something has to be done, she's the one who'll get her hands dirty. And I think, you know, Schumer just wants to have something on the record out there saying, me too. I also have courage.
- [61:59]
Abe Greenwald
But what's so comical about wanting to be cast in this heroic light for posterity here is that what's the biggest headline out of all this? Out of 2024, Trump won. Anyway, like, you didn't, you didn't save.
- [62:13]
John Podhoretz
Anything from your perspective, I want to point out that this piece is written by Annie Carney and Luke Broadwater. And here is the bio, because this is very telling. Annie Carney and Luke Broadwater, congressional correspondents at the Times are the co authors of quote of Madhouse How Donald Trump MAGA Mean Girls, A former used car salesman, A Florida Nepo baby and a man with rats in His Walls Broke Congress, from which this article is adapted. That's so they have a book coming out. This article is from the book. Schumer obviously gave them an interview in that classic way where it's like you could only put this out, you know, after the election, whatever, we don't know what when this happened. This book is in called Madhouse how the Democratic Party Covered up for a Senile President. That's the book I want to read. That is the book that everybody in America should want to read. That is the book that historians are going to need. And you know what? That book is never going to be written by people who are going to write it. Honestly. We're. They're going to be versions. Regnery will publish 30 versions of that book. Right. In one form or another.
- [63:25]
Seth Mandel
In a way, this is that book in the sense that there is a habit by members of the media who value their, you know, their insider status and their access. There is a habit of writing the book with a different tone than it will be read. Right. And I think this is one of those books that is written, you know, with the tone of Schumer the heroic. And here was what went on behind the scenes. But I think if you're reading the book after the election, you are sort of thinking, you almost can't ignore the fact that this is a description of a cover up in its own way. And if you're a member of the Democratic Party or, you know, especially an activist within the Democratic Party, you're reading to you, you're reading an account of how the party leaders destroyed any opportunity to beat Trump and win the election 2024. Right. You @ the audience who reads these.
- [64:30]
John Podhoretz
Okay, but the United States for it's the good of the United States going forward and for the proper administration of the laws and the Constitution of the United States going forward. We need to know what was going on inside the Biden White House so that it can never happen again. And I don't know whether the successful. We know everything that happened in the Nixon White House because that was a Republican White House and everybody in it. It was every man for himself. And they knew they could get good book contracts writing hit jobs on what went on, including people who went to jail like Haldeman and Ehrlichman and all James. James Dean. John Dean.
- [65:20]
Seth Mandel
They recorded the White House conversation.
- [65:22]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. And the tapes. Right, okay. And so that is a, that is a very. We know and Woodward and Bernstein getting whatever they got from Henry Kissinger and others on the final days. We know a lot about what went on in that White House. We need to know what went on in this White House. And this is a real test of character and patriotism or whatever on the part of people, not only writers but also the people inside who clearly did have a. Were put in a Hobson's choice about what it means to be loyal. What it means to be loyal to your party. Worrying about how giving detail and you know, strength to the, to the side you think is, is evil and is going to destroy the country. We need to know what happened. And there needs. So that there is a, there are more early warning systems. Right. We already went through this in this 1960s after John F. Kennedy's death and word coming out about just in the, not only stuff about Woodrow Wilson's presidency and his infirmities that had come out in the 40 years after, but also people saying, you know, John F. Kennedy was on 12 different medications every day and nobody ever knew. And in fact Ben Brad, his best friend was the reporter. Like there was an active cover up of what he was like and what he was living like because he had befriended the press so much and in the end that led to the 25th Amendment being passed because of these sorts of issues and issues about presidential succession. And we have to know what went on there. And I'm worried that we're never going to know because the media are complicit and corrupt and they knew at the time and they lied then and somebody is going to have to tell the story and maybe, maybe it can be, maybe it can be a right wing historian. I don't know how he gets in to find out the details but I mean at least somebody will try to lay out the, lay out the, the tape.
- [67:22]
Seth Mandel
They have, they have, they have a sort of a pact, a blood pact or a suicide pact of this because nobody resigned over it.
- [67:29]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [67:30]
Seth Mandel
But he said I can't, you know, even in the way, you know, after January 6th, we don't know that.
- [67:34]
John Podhoretz
You don't know whether Ron Klain. Ron Klain for all we know resigned because he's. Well, but I mean too exhausting. I can't be president.
- [67:41]
Abe Greenwald
But also, you know, by the way, I love the Times running this because this is the same paper along with billion others that at the time Biden Dropped out, said he made this decision. What a break. What a great, A selfless decision that he made on his own. The bravest for the good of the country, for the hardest decision to that. And now it's like Schumer desperately went up there and told him he would have. He would be a black stain on the history of America forever.
- [68:10]
John Podhoretz
Okay, okay, Exit. I'm now going to do the McLaughlin thing and then we're going to go. Exit Question. You guys don't even know. I'm going to ask you this. Three days to go. What are the odds that Joe Biden pardons His brother?
- [68:24]
Christine Rosen
100%.
- [68:26]
John Podhoretz
You have 100%. Okay. Christine's at 100%. That's before 12:00pm Monday. Christine's at 100%.
- [68:33]
Abe Greenwald
Abe right there with her.
- [68:35]
John Podhoretz
Okay, 100%. Seth?
- [68:37]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, I mean, I'm at like 90%. Yeah.
- [68:39]
John Podhoretz
Okay. I probably close to. There was a bizarre story last night that came out from NBC News that Biden is thinking of pardoning Trump. Biden is thinking of pardoning Trump. Now that, by the way, won't have any effect on the New York State decision in the Bragg case because that's a state court decision. But Biden is thinking of pardoning Trump. That pushes me. If that story is true. That pushes me to 110%. Because my idea would then be he's gonna pardon his brother and Trump at the same time.
- [69:12]
Christine Rosen
Yes.
- [69:13]
John Podhoretz
The idea being Trump, we need a president who isn't haunted by blah, blah, blah. And then maybe if I pardon him, he won't fight so hard against legislation that says that he called for in the farewell address, saying that, you know, presidents could be prosecuted for, you know, crimes while in office. Though he put it in a very strange way. He said, you know, there, there should be, you should be, you should have crimes in off. You shouldn't have crime. You should have crimes in office. Law should be passed that presidents have crimes in office or something like that, which is really a suitable conclusion to this.
- [69:52]
Christine Rosen
Anyway, Medicaid, whatever. I still don't know what that means.
- [69:54]
John Podhoretz
Right. Anyway, enjoy the apparently eight amazing football games that are going on this weekend. Of course, Monday is not only the inaugural, but is Martin Luther King Day, which is why we're taking the day. We will be back on Tuesday to assess the Trump inaugural, his speech, the first hostage releases and other matters. So we will reconvene then. So for Seth, Abe and Christine, I'm John Paborz. Keep the camera.