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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's John. I want to talk to you about Shopify. A lot of people talk to me about starting podcasts. This podcast is 10 years old. It's in a different place from a lot of podcasts because we're obviously part of a nonprofit institution and it's not a way that we are seeking to earn our livelihoods. But a lot of people look at this and say this is something I can really do to create a business and run the business and do it in a really comfortable, practical and serious way. Gotta wear a lot of different hats when you start your own business. Can be very intimidating. But one of the things that I know from a lot of people is that if your to do list is growing and growing and growing and that list starts to overrun your life, you need a tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything that can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands. Just getting started. You get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style. You can accelerate your content creation because it's packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. You get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into Kaching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com commentary go to shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary hope for the.
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B
Expect the wor some preach.
- [02:25]
A
And pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going Hope for the best expect the worst welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, October 17, 2025. I am John Pot Horitz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.
- [02:50]
C
Hi John.
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A
Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi Seth.
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B
Hi John.
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A
And Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.
- [02:58]
D
Hi John.
- [02:59]
A
We are Today closing our November 2025 issue, which also happens to be the 80th anniversary issue of Commentary. Commentary, first published In November of 1945, a very interesting issue, full and packed with a lot of amazing stuff. We will have for you available online Monday or Tuesday. And. And I'm very proud of it. I'm very proud of the fact that we were able to provide some pretty significant coverage of the peace deal with a piece by Jonathan Chanzer, a lot of other great stuff in the issue. So keep an eye on that early next week. Abe and I, I'm not sure about Seth and Christine, but Abe and I last night watched the mayoral debate in New York. There's one more before the election, but between Zoramdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. And when I say that the great crisis of the debate is that it was probably won by Curtis Sliwa, who is the Republican candidate who is currently scoring about 12 to 13% in the polls and therefore is providing Zoran Mamdani, who is finding it impossible, really, to get over 50% in the polls, is providing him with the margin of his potential victory over Cuomo. You can see the incredible irony in the fact that the spoiler candidate only made his spoiling more effective by being lively and passionate and substantive and interesting and a little crazy. Abe, this was the first time I think you've seen Mamdani kind of like in full performance mode. Yeah.
- [05:00]
C
At any length. You know, I've seen, I've seen the, you know, like the videos his campaign is released and stuff. But. And, you know, I've seen clips of interviews, but short clips. But I something I said to you last night, John, was that afterward, was that after having read so much about his political talent and his ability to talk on the fly and this and that, I was actually having nothing to do with the substance, which I already, we already know where I'm deeply opposed to, to everything he's about. But just from a performance standpoint, I was actually very underwhelmed. I didn't find him to be sort of people have likened him to Obama in his sort of ability to his charm and ease and facility to speak in the moment. I didn't get that from him. To me, he comes off as a sort of annoying kid, just in terms of affect, like a pest.
- [06:11]
A
He was really, really good in the, in the Democratic, the one Democratic primary debate. I thought it's interesting because here he is on a glide path to becoming the mayor in this kind of remarkable political year that he's experienced being a complete nobody in January, to sort of becoming the face of the potential future of his, of the Democratic Party, a party he was Not a member of, by the way, until he decided to run in it. And he seemed peevish, extremely defensive, very unpleasant. Not like he was ahead by 15 points or 20 points, but like he really needed to set the record straight against how monstrous Andrew Cuomo was when he has already, like, he'd already crushed Cuomo like a bug a couple months ago. And therefore you would think his affect would be closer to, hey, bug, I crushed you last time, I'll crush you again. Come on, come at me, bro, I'm not scared of you. And. And he was very sort of ugly. I mean, it was interesting because he did not have a happy warrior me and about him at all. And I thought he kind of muffed the debate. I just don't think that it mattered. In other words, if people were coming to him like you for the first time, I don't think they were coming to him and going, boy, that's a, that's a, that's an Obama like charmer, which there was some of in the first debate. It was more like, wow, he's evasive. And he, and, but by the way, he lied like 17 different times. And when he was lying like a kid, this is his worries like a kid. He got angry and self righteous in the lie. Like when he said, I never said that I would defund the police. So there are 17 tweets of him in which he says, I wanted to defund the police. He said, I never supported the legalization of prostitution. And there are 10 tweets of him supporting the Democratic Socialist of America position that sex work should be decriminalized. And there were various other things that he did or said when he said, I never said that. I've always said that Israel has a right to exist. And then Cuomo would say, as a Jewish state. And then he wouldn't answer the question. He said, of course, I think everybody, it's a ceasefire, so everybody should cease firing. Was his answer to the question of whether Hamas should disarm. So he did not perform well.
- [08:49]
D
You know, I watched long, I didn't watch the entire thing start to finish, but I watched long snippets of it and then looked at some more clips this morning and what struck me about him, because I had seen part of the primary debate when he was, as you say, John, much smoother, much more confident. And it struck me that like AOC and like some of these other rising democratic socialist youngsters who get a lot of social media attention and a lot of flattering mainstream media attention, they really flourish when they feel like they're the underdog, upstart revolutionaries. When they are the leaders, or when they're placed in a position where they're ahead of their opponents, or they're having to do the nuts and bolts of, say, passing legislation in Congress, which AOC hasn't been very effective at, they are less appealing because that's not actually what they want to do. So when he was starting to be pinned down on specifics, he did sound defensive, because I think his attitude, as it is with a lot of these young Democratic socialists. I don't have to get into the details. Just trust me. My charisma should carry me across the line. And he was.
- [09:48]
A
He.
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D
The evasiveness, I think, is part of the brand. It has been with some of these other younger candidates. Sliwa, I just thought was very jumpy. He looked like he's, like, he's just really jumpy. But on substance, he was the only one of the three who actually could get a coherent thought out and answer questions directly. So, I don't know. I was equally unimpressed in terms of the charisma. I mean, he smiles a lot, but he's no Obama.
- [10:12]
C
Yeah.
- [10:13]
A
I mean, I think.
- [10:13]
B
Well, part of what happens is that, Christine, what you're describing is the dog catching the car, I think. Right. Which is there's something sort of similar with a lot of people with. With a lot of supporters of Trump. I don't know about Trump himself, but. Which is the. The idea that if you're in. If you're a Zoran Mamdani, you believe your whole world is articulated in the fact that no one will ever let you get into power because of who you are and that the game is rigged and that, you know, this is, you know, it's a sort of. Your party is a Clintonian nightmare. And so you start to believe it, I think, and many people around you, for sure, you know, Zoran may or may not believe that he ever had a chance, but the people in the movement believe their own propaganda about the game being rigged against them. And then they learn only how to be in opposition, and then they catch the car.
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C
You know, on the question of Curtis, the funny thing is it was at first, to me unsettling to see him without the.
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A
He wasn't wearing his beret. Right. His red beret, which is the. Curtis Lee was invented the Guardian angels in the 1980s, which was essentially a kind of neighborhood watch on the subways. It was a bunch of young people who would patrol the New York City subways. And they wore these red berets and a jacket. And they were, I mean, that's why I call it a neighborhood watch or something like that, because they weren't vigilantes. They didn't do anything.
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C
They carried no weapons.
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A
Yeah, they, they were there to walk through subway cars to say, someone is here to protect you. And they were real folk heroes in the, in, in, in New York city in the 1980s. It was sort of like Batman or something. It's hard to, it's hard to express how grateful New Yorkers were when this, when the city's authorities had essentially given up on the idea that crime could be prevented. That, that, that something could happen that would, that would cause people who were about to prey on you to think twice and not do it. And it was a real achievement. And here he is, it's like 35 years later. He's been a radio talk show host. This is now his second run for candidate. He's a genuine eccentric. You know, he has 20 cats. He brought his cat to the polling place in 2021 to vote with him. You know, he and his wife are very. So he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a New York character of a kind that is fading. Yeah.
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C
Well, the thing is. But he's always worn his beret the whole time.
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D
Yeah.
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C
For decades later, sort of up till last night. And it was almost as if his, like the top third of his head was missing.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Because I'm just not used to seeing it. And he actually looked a little bit like Giuliani suddenly, but like a good.
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A
Looking, good looking guy. Very good looking elder, elder man, like very good shape, you know, so.
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C
But once I, once I, once I got used to that, I was fine. And you know, but I think his, and his performance in general, I think was, in general was, was pretty good. And I think, you know, John, you said a long time ago, long time ago, early in this race, you had this idea that the idea that Cuomo should be the anti Mamdani was misguided. Maybe the anti Mamdani should have been Curtis all along, if for no other reason than the mathematics of the fact that he is the Republican on the ticket and there will be X number of people already simply from that starting point, voting Republican. And he can try to gain from there.
- [14:04]
A
I mean, that's the problem, is that he is seen as an eccentric. He got 300,000 votes in 2021. He'll get another 300,000 votes this time. One assumes Cuomo is Only the anti momdani because he's the most famous person in the race. And getting Democrats, if the goal is to get enough Democrats to say, I don't want Mamdani having a republic, telling that there was some kind of mid ground where you could get them to vote for somebody who was a Democrat so they wouldn't have to vote for a Republican. And, and therefore Cuomo was, was the better choice. Having said that, Cuomo's performance was so dreadful that, I mean, I don't see, you know, I don't see how anybody comes away from watching him for 90 minutes. Two hours, actually. I think I watched him for two hours and says, yeah, I'm enthusiastically going to vote for him at the polls. If it's raining, I'm going to go vote for him. I said in the column that I published in the New York Post braving the possibility of getting accused of anti Italian American bias, that he sounded like Luca Brazzi trying to thank the Don for inviting him to his daughter's wedding.
- [15:27]
D
Well, that he, he was, he's like an athlete who, who has been on the injured list for a while and they put him back in the game and he gets the yips or whatever. Like he just doesn't. He, he's, he knows. Like this and he, and he. But the fact that he didn't have a succinct response to the sexual harassment allegation was really telling. He kind of mumbled around it.
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A
His response to sexual harassment allegation was this. And I will now attempt to imitate him. There were 11 cases of women and I. It was a political. And their investigations have been proceeding and I was dropped from the case. Whereupon the reporter to the Sally Goldenberg of Politico is like, what do you mean you were dropped from the case? There are different cases and some of them are ongoing. I was dropped from the case where there were women who. It was political and they were dropping me and the investigations and, and the case dropping me from the case.
- [16:41]
D
Every time he said women, I cringe. Just that.
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B
Like, no.
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D
Oh, you're just. No.
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A
The point is he resigned. He wasn't driven from office. He resigned. Maybe he resigned because he thought the party was going to come at him. Like many politicians who make the decision to resign to get out of trouble, like Al Franken and others, he rued the decision. Clearly he felt like he was under intolerable pressure and that he needed to kind of pull back and live to fight another day or that, you know, he couldn't survive. You know, Maybe he would get impeached or something like that. But he clearly is unhappy that he did it. I think that some of the allegations are pretty specious. Doesn't matter what I think. He's the one who quit. And you know, Mamdani threw it in his face and Sliwa threw it in his face. But I mean, even when he was talking about policy and he is one of the worst retail politicians in the history of this country and literally is a kind of was an accidental governor in this sense, which is that he was supposed to be a serious candidate for governor in 2002 against George Pataky. And George Pataky reelect and he screwed the pooch. He said insulting things about Rudy Giuliani at a moment when Rudy Giuliani was a very respected figure in New York City. Or he said it about Pataki. He said Pataky was holding Giuliani's coat or something like that as they worked together to bring New YORK Back after 911 people said that that was disgusting and that he had misbeh behaved and that was kind of the end of that effort. And then in 2008, the best he could do was get himself elected as Attorney General of the state. Not a particularly important job. And then there was a series of crises in Albany. Elliot Spitzer winning a landslide election in 2008 and then getting himself into huge trouble. Spitzer having to resign, at which point David Patterson, his Lieutenant Governor becomes governor. And Patterson behaves like an unbelievable idiot. Basically makes it impossible for himself to run and win in 2010. And Cuomo is left standing as the only politician Democratic politician in New York with any standing and wins the gubernatorial mansion in 2010. Under ordinary circumstances, without this weird set of dominoes falling, Spitzer and Patterson, Cuomo would never have made it to the governor's mansion. And then the same person that he was ended up, you know, sort of playing footsie, saying things all throughout his governorship. Things like basically, if you believe what Republicans believe, you don't belong in New York State. Know, New York City is a state that's like 40% Republican. Like he was like, get out of our state, you stink. Then you know, trying to make, make friends with the left that he was worried about. Agrees to incredible soft on crime measures like no cash bail and very and various other pro pro prisoner, pro criminal ideas that were being proffered by the state assembly and the. And. And then comes Covid and he's like a hero for a minute and then he becomes a goat and then he's out. So he's lousy at this, but I mean, he was lousier last night than he's been. And I've always thought he was lousy at this. But who? Boy, like at the one moment when he really needed to step up to the plate, make a case against Bomdani and make a case for himself in this outside, you know, trying to draw to an outside straight. Couldn't even explain what it was that he did that made him good at being a governor. It was as though he's so inside his own head that he doesn't have to say these words that he never said. I built LaGuardia Airport, I rebuilt the Tappan Zee Bridge, I built the Second Avenue subway. These are things that have made New York better. New York needs somebody like me to be mayor. I just said it. He was unable to say it, so.
- [21:12]
B
Well, he. He's also kind of been. He's more comfortable as the enforcer, isn't he? I mean, the Cuomo's as family. What he likes to do is bring people.
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A
Yeah. Bring people into a room and threaten them. I mean, I got threatening phone calls from him when I was a journalist and he was a at hud, and then he was sort of like a New Yorker. He likes to threaten people and intimidate people. And he's got no intimidation. He's got nothing behind him, nothing backing him to intimidate people. So he doesn't have a manner. He doesn't have another gear to downshift into like argumentation, substance, genuine engagement with the problem of Mamdani's ideological radicalism. All he just kept saying is he's a democratic socialist. And. And then he said, somebody said, do you think he's an anti Semite? And he's like, I don't like to characterize people.
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B
Yeah. Andrew doesn't name.
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A
You don't like to characterize people.
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C
He does have another mode, which is showboating also, but once again, he's not in a position to showboat. You know, when he was riding high by his own lights, by his own perception, during COVID when he thought he was the hero of the pandemic, that was sort of, you know, Cuomo, the talk show host, you know, every day putting on a Daily show in the form of a press conference, people fell in love with that. I always found it sickening. But again, that's. That mode is not available to him now.
- [23:03]
E
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- [24:28]
A
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E
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- [25:04]
A
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- [25:42]
B
You know it's a role thing like you know, the Cuomo's made sense as a unit. The family right there, you know, there was an intellectual and then there was, you know, the, the, the large adult son who pushed people around, you know, in boiler rooms to help the Intellectual and, you know, whatever. It's just Cuomo's role is. Is never. He's never grown into his father as a politician. Right. He's always been the guy that he was to help. You know, he's always the guy that knows his role.
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D
Well, no, there was no way.
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A
Politician, by the way.
- [26:17]
D
There was no way for him. There were so many paths he could have taken. The one you just outlined, John, saying all the things he could do for the city of New York, but there's a huge, wide open path about the economy and the economic effects of the policies Mamdani has already proposed and is on the record saying he'll enforce if he becomes mayor. And on crime, and on neither of those things did he have anything to say. I think there's this old school Democratic Party type who assumes that just saying the word Democratic socialist triggers a whole list of anxiety in voters. But that might be true for voters Cuomo's age. It is not true for young people in Brooklyn who say, yeah, free buses, free apartments, subsidize this, subsidize that. That's fantastic. They hear that and they become enthusiastic. And he did. Somebody has to respond to those avenues and the crime stuff in particular. I was shocked to see that just not be most of what this debate should have been about.
- [27:09]
A
Well, so what did Cuomo say? I mean, Cuomo said, I'll hire 5,000 new cops. And then the moderator said, how are you going to pay for that? And then he didn't really have an answer. Truth is, of course you can hire 5,000 new cops. You juggle things around and you say, I'll make it work. And Mamdani, one of the many ways in which he flubbed the debate was he said, I've never said bad things about the cops, which is embarrassing. And then he. But he said the weird thing. He tried to get himself right on the idea of safety and security and his understanding that New Yorkers were not feeling safe or secure by saying that security is affordability. Like, affordability is his word. Aside from, you know, like. Like kissing terrorist ass. Affordability is what he stands for. Whatever that means. That means. And he lays it out, it's a free buses, freezing rents, and gross city owned grocery stores. Those are his three big affordability things. By the way. Can I just stop for a minute and say these three guys were asked kind of an embarrassing question, but I thought, revealing how much they spent at the grocery store each week, revealing that none of them has ever been in a grocery store, because according to them, Remember, Mondami is married, right? Cuomo has. I don't know what his domestic situation is, but he's got kids who said, come over. And Sliwa is married and has a couple of kids in a very odd way, with Melinda Katz, the queen's political figure, they each said they spend about $150 a week at the grocery store. No, you don't. You spend way more than $150 a week at a grocery store. Are you kidding me? Like, you know, you want to have free, you know, city run grocery stores around. Mom, Daddy, you haven't even been in a grocery store. Like, you think your fresh direct bill. And the same is $150 for two. Two people. Well, but out of your mind.
- [29:28]
D
And that affordability thing coming up as a response to the issues of law enforcement, again, a total gimme right there for either of the other people on that stage to say, you know what? Good law enforcement is expensive. Like, you actually have to pay cops, especially cops in a city like New York, a lot of money to do a really good job and you get what you pay for. And so even just saying, I'm going to hire more cops, good luck. Do you know what? Urban police department recruitment rates are now miserable. It's really hard to get people to do that job. And they are in lots of cities. So someone speaking to that and saying, yeah, actually we have to invest a lot of money. It's going to cost, but it's worth it. And then talking about bail reform, all these other things that could be done to make the city a safer place.
- [30:07]
A
Well, Cuomo tried again. His Luca Brasi inarticulateness was astounding because he wanted to make the case that not only is it bad because Mamdani has said the wrong things about, you know, enforcement and policing and punishment, but that there's every indication that upon his election, were he to be elected, there would be an exodus of experienced cops from the police department. People quitting, leaving. No one will want to be a cop under him. He wants to place the police department under a form of legal receivership in which any accusation made against a cop for being, you know, brutal or something like that is going to basically land the cop into some kind of a star chamber system with very few protections. So the police department may hollow itself out, and we can't afford to elect somebody mayor who is going to drive the people who have made up the police department of New York City, which it is important to note whether you are, you may be Zoramdani and a communist piece of filth and hate. All cops. New York has what everybody acknowledges is the best, best trained, most careful, least gun happy, least brutal police department in the United it's the largest and it is the best trained and it has gone through hell to get to the place where it is at New York City police pull their gun in a very dangerous place, actually pull their guns out of their holsters at a rate 1/10 as frequently as policemen in other cities because they have other means of deconfliction at their disposal that they have been very painstakingly trained to use. And so Maudani, of course, slanders New York cops. He slanders all good things. And he, if you're a policeman, go to Nassau county, go somewhere else. Go to a city that is having trouble with recruitment and will like give you a giant bonus because you don't.
- [32:24]
D
Want to come here. We need cops. We need more cops.
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A
There you go. Yeah. I mean they would have the same issue, which is what do you want to be a cop in D.C. for? If every arrest you make, like the arrest of the, of the, of the teenagers who beat up that Doge official, big balls. We saw him like lying bloodied on the street. And a cop yesterday just let his, the people who carjacked him and beat him up out without punishment.
- [32:55]
D
Well, the cop didn't. The cops arrested two of the cops. A judge. A really left of our, most of our judges in D.C. are right.
- [33:03]
A
So what do you want to, so what do you want to be a cop in D.C. when the judge is going to, you know, after you actually do your job, a judge is going to let the.
- [33:11]
D
But that's a problem in New York too. That's actually part of the system that's in deep need of reform.
- [33:16]
B
Right, but I mean, that's a good, I mean, but that's, that's, that's a good point about the cops, which is that, you know, I remember having this debate after Ferguson and was it 2014 that, you know, people were saying this is the militarization of police. And they, you know, and they pointed to like New York Post, 9, 11. And I was like, can you name for me the number of times you've seen a police chief roll up Broadway in an mrap? Because that's what was happening in Ferguson. They, in Ferguson, they were play, you know, the county sheriffs and the county police were play, acting a war zone because they didn't know. This is because they don't generally police an area that takes this amount of training and working with the local population and all the other stuff. You will never see a tank rolling down the streets of Manhattan. The New York. The NYPD doesn't do that. And so there is this idea that, you know, the problem is these, like, the more. The better trained you are and the more experienced you are, somehow the worse you must be. That's this progressive idea of the police, when, in fact, they have honed it to a science over a period of time. Not that they don't make mistakes, but that they have honed it to a science in a very difficult place to, you know, police, considering that there's high buildings everywhere, you know, you. Somebody's. There's a thousand people looking at you from every direction, every angle. You have to, you know, and so they. They sort of treat experience as a bad thing. But by the way, the greatest thing that the reason that Andrew Cuomo did not try to appear to empathize with the average New Yorker last night is because he did once try that. And I just want to remind everybody of what happened in 2017 when he was told to be a ban against intolerance and be a better progressive. And he said this as a New Yorker, I am a Muslim, I am a Jewish, I am black, I am gay. I am a woman seeking to control her body. We are one New York. So, you know, I had memory.
- [35:36]
A
Andrew.
- [35:36]
B
Cuomo standing up last night saying, I am a woman seeking to control her body.
- [35:40]
A
Yeah, no, I mean, that. That reminds me of that. The. One of the very few good sketches during the really dark SNL years of, like, 80 to 85, when Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy were the only funny things on the show. And they did Sinatra and Stevie Wonder doing Ebony and Ivory, as opposed to Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney. And so Piscopo is Frank Sinatra and Eddie Murphy is Stevie Wonder. And the Piscopo song lyrics are, you are black and I am white. You are blind as a bat, and I have sight. You know, like, that is quote, like the awkwardness of how Frank Sinatra would try to perform a, you know, a sort of drippy racial solidarity number. And that is Cuomo. Every time he tries to do something, he puts his foot in his mouth. And like I say, last night, this was his moment to overcome all of these liabilities for the sake of New York's future and his own future. And he muffed it, boy. So I don't really see that there's much hope of him, you know, prevailing in the next couple weeks.
- [37:00]
D
There's one more debate Right, One more debate.
- [37:02]
A
There's one more debate. Yeah. Well, if he gets a personality transplant, you know, maybe something good could happen, but I don't know that, you know, that's really in the cards. Seth, I wanted to turn to you and talk about this maybe odd landmark moment in the rise of global antisemitism in democracies that you wrote about yesterday in Birmingham, England. Wrote a really great post about this and talk about what's happened since the event or the announcement that you wrote about. But can you lay out what, what happened?
- [37:52]
B
Sorry.
- [37:53]
A
Sure.
- [37:53]
B
Yeah. So there's an upcoming game in November, I think it's November 6, was scheduled between Maccabi Tel Aviv, you know, which is the, the probably the most well known worldwide sports club in Israel and a local team in soccer in Britain. Soccer, right.
- [38:12]
A
Yeah.
- [38:13]
B
In Aston Villa, in, in Birmingham. And they received threats leading up to the. Well, it's still leading up to the match. Technically there's still a couple of weeks to go, but there have been threats. And the way that these communities work is the, the local police make a recommendation to a sort of security board, like a municipal security board, and the municipal security board always does what the cops tell them. And in this case, the police recommended that no away fans be permitted at the game. In these games, there's a certain, there's two different entrances, there's a certain allotment for away fans. Right. This, because this is a global game. People are coming from far away for these matches, you know, all over Europe and in some cases, you know, from Tel Aviv and, you know, wherever. And so there's an allotment and they are, it's a key part really of global soccer, which is this, this international element of it, this global element of it, where you have these, you know, these sort of. Every match can feel like, you know, a kind of Olympic qualifier or something like that. And so the, the, the opposing, you know, the visiting fans are actually a very important part of this in American sports. You know, the Yankees were just criticized for trying to ensure that people with an IP address in Boston couldn't buy tickets to, to the playoff round. Right. In America, we, we in America, the home team tries to control the whole thing. So I'm just giving a picture that actually the opposing team's fans are a very important part of the global soccer world and the spectacle, and they have been disallowed from attending the game on account of safety. Now, to be so, to be clear, some people like Mehdi Hassan and others are trying to paint this as, oh, we don't want Tel Avivian soccer hooligans running wild, you know, and one of, there was a Muslim member of parliament who said something very similar. It's not about the fans are not the problem. No one in a position of power or authority, in the air, in the realm of security, has expressed any concerns that the fans will be rowdy. Welcome to soccer, first of all, right? But it is entirely been, the decision has been made entirely on the idea that the threats to the fans, specifically against the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, were real and they were legitimate threats. And the local police did not know what to do about it, did not feel that they could, you know, sufficiently handle whatever it was. And the reason that they didn't feel they could sufficiently handle it is because this is what globalize the intifada means. We've had preceding events, right? And the main one that the mind immediately goes to is what happened in Amsterdam last November when there was an Israeli team coming to play and there was a genuine pogrom. I mean, there was a Jew hunt, an organized Jew hunt in Amsterdam where they enlisted the taxi driver, like the network of taxi drivers. And the cops in many cases knew and stood down, although occasionally warned Israeli fans not to take the taxis cryptically, but didn't, did nothing else. And essentially they opened this sort of all night Jew hunt for the fans of the Israeli team. This was, you know, that was a, that was a pretty shocking moment. And I think that the, and so the, the local police in Birmingham were like, what are, what are we? Are we an anti terror squad? Are we an army? Are we. The feeling is that when people threaten Jews, especially in Europe, they're coming and it's not a joke. They saw a pogrom happen and they don't feel equipped to be able to do this now. They probably, I mean, they almost surely are equipped to do this. This is the thing. It's really kind of, I think, a sad excuse, but they are. What I'm saying is they, in order to get out of having the fans there, they're playing up the violence and the possibility of violence, which incentivizes the threats to continue and to escalate. And incentivizes the violence to escalate. Because what you're telling these people is if your threats reach a certain threshold against Jewish fans, we'll just shut the whole thing down, or not shut the whole thing. That will not let the Jewish fans in the building, but the game will go on with, you know, half a stadium.
- [43:16]
D
It is the textbook definition of terrorism. You hold hostage innocent people with threats of violence. And in this case, what makes it so egregious? And everyone should read Seth's piece. It's wonderful because it lays out that this is not a one off, that this is, this is another data point in a series of really horrific examples of this happening in Europe. The law enforcement folks rolled right over. It's almost as if that's now that's going to continue. I mean, we've had this debate about college campuses and safety and speakers and such in the United States. But the extent to which law enforcement immediately capitulates is a signal not just to Jew haters, but to terrorists that they now have control over certain parts of the UK because all they have to do is issue this threat. And they will continue to do it. They'll do it outside of synagogues. They'll do it outside of any event that might involve the state of Israel or Jews in the uk and that is terrifying.
- [44:09]
F
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- [44:40]
G
I'm Oliver Darcy.
- [44:41]
H
And I'm John Passantino.
- [44:43]
G
We have spent years covering the inner workings of the news media, tech, politics, Hollywood and power. Now through our nightly newsletter, Status.
- [44:51]
H
And we're bringing that same reporting and sharp analysis to a new podcast, Power Lines.
- [44:57]
G
Every Friday, we're breaking down the biggest stories shaping the industry, explaining why they matter and saying the things most people are thinking but too timid to say out loud.
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H
No spin, no fluff, just sharp analysis that isn't afraid to call it like it is. We also pull back the curtain via our Exception exclusive reporting to take you behind the scenes.
- [45:15]
G
My understanding having reported this is that the Pentagon protested to CNN and tried to effectively exile the CNN producer. And when the moment calls for it, we've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up.
- [45:31]
H
Oh my God. That's Power Lines presented by Status. Follow Powerlines and listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast app.
- [45:47]
A
It's worse than that because they're saying if you're a fan of Maccabi Tel Aviv, you can't come to our stadium because we can't Guarantee your security. In other words, you. It's not even the terrorist veto. We are restricting your freedom of movement for your own good. And that's completely disingenuous. And I think everybody even understands it's disingenuous. That's the. Ayub Khan, who is a Member of Parliament from Birmingham, wrote the following statement. I quote in part. I welcome the Safety Advisory Group's decision to advise that Maccabee Tel Aviv fans will not be permitted to attend villa park on the 6th of November. From the moment that the match was announced, it was clear that there were latent safety risks that even our capable security and police authorities would not be able to fully manage. With so much hostility and uncertainty around the match, it was only right to take drastic measures. Sports entertainment should be enjoyed by all, regardless of their race, ethnicity and background. But there are rare instances where the political dynamics surrounding such spectacles cannot be ignored. What would an ordinary politician do in a circumstance like this? Or a politician would say, I'm going to the event and I'm going to sit with the Maccabee Tel Aviv fans. That's what. But he's not an ordinary politician. He is a British Muslim politician catering to jihadist sentiment in his. In his borough and in his world. And he is welcoming the idea that an entire fandom should be banned from a stadium on the grounds that people like him might attack them.
- [47:48]
B
And we should note, by the way, that he petitioned for that. He, before the decision was made, he said, how can you let these. Don't let the fans come in. And he said on social media last night, you know, how pleased he was that his petition, you know, essentially was accepted. So in, if you're describing this, a place where this happens, a lawmaker says, ban the Jewish fans. And then the police do so. And then the lawmaker says, that was a great decision. And you asked me which country I'm describing to you. You know, the idea that this is Britain is this was a member of Parliament who said, don't let the Jewish fans come to the game and then.
- [48:29]
A
Celebrate it openly of the Labor Party. And that's what's important here. And that's why sometimes interesting political events or political moments happen from weird roots. You know, an entire continent's view of the rights of Jewish people against their deprators took place in 1859, 1860, when the Catholic Church kidnapped a Jewish little boy named Edgardo Mantara on the grounds that he had been baptized by his nanny and was therefore part of the Catholic world, no longer part of the Jewish world. And it was so the seizure of this child from his family had enormous ripple effects, not only in Spain, but in Italy and the Risorgimento in Italy and various other places, one boy. One boy kidnapped. There are stirrings overnight today that suggest that this entire world in which the Labour Party is increasingly becoming apologetic, of accepting, of blinding itself to ignoring the rise of jihadist violence against Jews in the British Isles has now not only has it gone too far, but that there is an unspeakable element to it, that saying things like, no one can come to this stadium to see a football game if you have a yellow star sewn to your shirt is too much. It's too much like the scenes in the street.
- [50:28]
B
And by the way, Maccabi's colors are maize and blue, yellow and blue.
- [50:33]
D
So a lot of.
- [50:34]
A
Oh, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
- [50:36]
D
No, I was just going to add that part of how they got to this point we shouldn't forget is, you know, 10 years ago during the Brexit discussions and everything, the Labour Party was a lot like our Democratic Party and our, and our left in general in this country, very focused on the threat of far right extremism. And there was this horrific assassination of a Labour mp, Jo Cox, by a far right nut. Nut case, who was then sentenced to life in prison. And I think that has long continued way past the point of rationality, shaped their view of what the threat is internally in terms of domestic terrorism, in the same way it has done on the left. So the rise of Muslim extremism and Islamic terrorist extremism in their own party and in their own country has gone overlooked. And then you combine that with the identity politics, the let's all be tolerant, let's, you know, they have a different way of living than we do. So if they're grooming gangs, you know, raping children, children, we just are going to look the other way if we're in law enforcement. So this is the culmination of a series of cultural threads, I think, in the uk, and particularly on the left, which also explains the rise of this alternative party in the UK and some of their anger, not just about post Brexit, but about how the law enforcement and people in power are dealing with the threat of Islamic terrorism.
- [51:56]
C
I mean, here's the, the irony to me. I mean, look, John, you're right. I mean, maybe this will, this is the start of a sort of counter response or this will inspire a sort of wrenching back of the country, but I'm not that hopeful. October 7th, sure as hell didn't destroy Israel, might have destroyed Europe, given its caving to the terrorist side instead of fighting it.
- [52:38]
B
Yeah, and this happened in, you know, last year, this happened in Turkey, right? And it was soon after the Amsterdam pogrom, and Turkey was hosting a match with Maccabi Tel Aviv against the local team. And they moved the match to Hungary. They moved the match literally out of the country. In Hungary, you could have a neutral site where Israelis could play soccer. That, that is itself probably a separate discussion, but its own sort of wonder of the age in which we live that you had to move it to Hungary. And maybe that's what you need to do in Birmingham, too, is move it to a safe, neutral place like Hungary for the Jews. But, but, but this was. It didn't, you know, you didn't have the same backlash because you don't expect, you know, type Erdogan to, you know, to care that, you know, people are upset about this sort of thing. The fact that a year later, you know, 11 months later, this happened in Birmingham was, you know, how quickly these things move is that you didn't really blink when it happened in Turkey because you consider that, you know, a semi authoritarian state, an anti Semitic, you know, run by an anti Semitic government. And so, you know, when they say, we don't want the Israelis here, you say, all right, that's. What do you expect? We have come to a place where we're getting very close to saying things like, well, what do you expect in Birmingham? What do you expect in Manchester? And that is shaking people and it's.
- [54:08]
C
Going to long outlast the war.
- [54:12]
A
Yeah, I think that's very true. I think we'll leave it there. Hope everybody has a wonderful weekend with this final, final set of thoughts.
- [54:23]
D
Here we are back on message.
- [54:25]
A
Yeah, bring you back after a pretty extraordinary week. And we'll be back on Monday. So for Abe, Christine and Seth, I'm John. Pod. Horiz, keep the camera burning.
- [54:48]
C
And Doug, here we have the limu.
- [54:51]
B
Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
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A
Fascinating.
- [55:00]
B
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [55:07]
A
Cut the camera.
- [55:07]
C
They see us.
- [55:08]
H
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.