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- [00:04]
Eliana Johnson
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com.
- [00:33]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best, Expect.
- [00:39]
Seth Mandel
The worst Some preach and pain some diapers no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect.
- [00:51]
John Podhoretz
The worst Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast. Tuesday, November 11, 2025. It is Veterans Day and we are delighted and honored to be able to thank everyone who has served this country so magnificently and at such great personal sacrifice, both the living and the dead. I am John Pod Hortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me as always, Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi Seth.
- [01:26]
Seth Mandel
Hi John.
- [01:27]
John Podhoretz
Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi Eliana.
- [01:30]
Eliana Johnson
Hi John.
- [01:31]
John Podhoretz
And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Today, an important day for Christine and for American intellectual life in general. Christine's highly praised, highly noted international bestseller, the Extinction of Experience is now available in paperback. This book every day brings another example of the phenomenon that Christine attempts to diagnose, explain and critique in the book how virtual life is replacing real life and the consequences there too. I know a state piece in the New York Times opinion section today by Eric Schmidt of formerly of Google. Where is Eric Schmidt from his Google Right. He was the head of Google about how Albania, among other places, is now considering doing policy by algorithm, using algorithms to determine what is and what is not a wise approach to making policy and how this really fits in in a terrible way with how we are acceding to the replacement of our actually own individual experiences by virtual experiences, virtual knowledge, virtual everything. So Christine, congratulations on the publication of the paperback. Thank you. Anything that you can tell us about is it aside from the fact that it has been Translated into roughly 500,000 languages?
- [03:14]
Christine Rosen
A bunch of languages, yes. No, just, you know, I've been, I've had wonderful correspondence. A lot of our listeners who did buy the book when it came out last year and I appreciate that and I appreciate any feedback. My whole thing is, you know, defend the human interactions that seems small scale but actually has long term consequences for us and don't outsource your human skills quite yet to AI. So no, thank you. I appreciate the shout out. So yeah, it's cheaper in paperback, so if you're holding out for the cheaper version then. The cheaper version is available to you now.
- [03:45]
John Podhoretz
Christine Rosen's the Extinction of Experience. Well, the other thing that's going extinct is the government shut down. The Senate passed its bill to reopen the government, and we now go to the House, which of course, had already passed the bill to keep the government open. It was the Senate that was keeping it closed. The House now has to revisit that bill in the next 4, 48 hours, pass some version of something, and then the Senate and the House bill can go to reconciliation, and then, and then the president can sign and the government can reopen. We were amused this morning, Eliana and I, in particular, by the New York Times seemingly desperate effort to suggest that, oh, boy, it could be close in the House who, you know, Democrats are really not happy and it could be really close in the House. Well, you know, the bill that passed, the Republicans passed before the government shutdown was a bill that got no Democratic votes and only Republican votes. And there's no reason to believe that anything would be different this week than it was seven weeks ago or six weeks ago or whatever the hell that was. So this effort to, I don't know, keep hope alive among those who have desperately learned that government shutdowns always end with the side that thought that it was a good idea to shut the government down caving. So this is just nothing new in our experience. And here we are again. But, Eliana, we are also seeing a revolt, a revolt inside the Democratic Party. A revolt. Why are they revolting?
- [05:28]
Eliana Johnson
Well, John, the sentence in the Times piece that we were laughing about this morning, first the headline was, after Senate vote, House gets its say on the shutdown deal, as if there's some suspense around what the House is going to do. And then the Times writes, the measure goes next to the House, which is expected to take it up no sooner than Wednesday, and where the small Republican margin of control and intense Democratic opposition could make for a close vote. I don't think any Republicans are expected to suddenly want to shut down the government again. And I don't think the, the intensity of Democratic feeling is going to change the vote here. So, so that was amusing this morning. And I just want to correct one thing I said yesterday. I think I accidentally said that these seven well, it was six Democrats and one Independent, Angus King. I think I what came out of my mouth was that they are up for reelection when I intended to say they are not up for reelection. So the Democrats who voted to reopen the government are not up for reelection Correction.
- [06:38]
John Podhoretz
Okay, we need to talk about the Democratic revolt, and particularly among elected officials, because this is the. There is a Kabuki theater thing that goes on every time something like this happens, which is that the government had to reopen before people started traveling on Thanksgiving at the very, very latest, otherwise there would be a nationwide revolt and, you know, with unforeseen political consequences. And under these circumstances, when you have these weird standoffs in the history, groups emerge in the Senate. They call themselves the gang of eight, the gang of 14, the gang of 12, the gang of 11, the gang of. And they come together, Democrats and Republicans, and they make peace. And then they come and they say, okay, we're going to get this vote over the hump. And then everybody else gets to say, hey, wait a minute, do you. You stink. You're a sellout. You've ruined everything. You've destroyed everything, while privately going, oh, thank God. Oh, thank God this is over with and we can get onto it. So they agree to kind of take the ideological bullet for others in their party who are less secure in their support in their districts or in their support from their donors or things like that. That is a classic. Throughout my adult lifetime, that is a classic piece of Washington Kabuki theater. And I have no reason to believe that it is any different this time from any other time.
- [08:10]
Christine Rosen
Well, there is, there is one difference that I think is worth pointing out here because. And it has to do with Chuck Schumer, who is such a poll driven, craven, finger in the air sort of guy for a leader, that I think his reaction contrasted with, say, how Mitch McConnell used to behave in these situations, which is that if you have leadership means taking some hits from your own side, not just from the other side. And the minute that Schumer realized that, you know, back in March when he, when he sort of stood, stood up for this, that he was going to take some hits and his poll numbers would dip, he freaked out and he stopped actually behaving like a leader. And so this negotiation didn't really even involve him. He's. He's the top leader. It was Jeanne Shaheen, whose own daughter is now angry at her for negotiating this settlement, which is another interesting side story about the shutdown. But I found his lack of spine in these negotiations, his lack of willingness to take some arrows from his own team, really notable, although not at all surprising.
- [09:08]
Eliana Johnson
The other thing that was amusing about this whole thing is the far left. They're saying Democrats caved. You know, the groups like Indivisible and basically the lunatics in the Democratic Party. But all the other Democrats who are mad, they're furious, but they can't exactly say why they're furious because they don't want to go out there and say, I'm angry because Democrats caved. So when you're reading the coverage or watching tv, it's sort of hilarious. You get quotes like, Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan is quoted in the New York Times saying, what has worked in the past is not working now. We need to meet the moment, and we're not doing that. This is why she's angry. You just get these anodyne, bizarre quotes because nobody, Christine, to your point, like, Democrats don't want to point the finger at Schumer, but they're angry at the, they're angry at Schumer and at their.
- [10:06]
John Podhoretz
What is it? Here's the thing. So Democrats, there's a group of Democrats, activist Democrats, thrilled by the results of last Tuesday's election, right? Thrilled Blue wave, got it, won everywhere they wanted to win. Fantastic. And then they turn around and the government is being reopened instead of continuing to shut down. And so they're like, well, we didn't win anything, obviously, because we're caving to the Republicans who want to reopen the government. This is a very weird reading of last week, in my opinion, though understandable. And if I were, you know, where I am ideologically, you know, in my own coalition and sort of moving back in time and something like this was going on, I too might be annoyed at the perception that Donald Trump was being handed a victory, right, in some fashion, or that the head of the other party was being handed a victory. But the simple fact of the matter is that it was very hard for anybody to move off the shutdown entropy effect until the public spoke on election Day. In other words, the Democrats had committed themselves to the. We are opposing Trump. We are running this election in opposition to Trump, and they won, relatively speaking. Now it's time to move on and conduct that fight against Trump. This isn't that fight. This is not a good fight for them. They may think it's a good fight for them because they're being short sighted, but the fact is that every policy fight is probably a better fight for them than any of this would be.
- [11:56]
Seth Mandel
And the shutdown itself is, is such that if you win the argument about the shutdown, right, if it's a, if it's a good issue for you, you have made the case against the shutdown. So good luck making the case to continue the shutdown. Right. In other Words. The reason the Democrats were successful on messaging on the shutdown is because the public bought the idea more or less that the Republicans were to blame for what was happening. And what was happening was, you know, SNAP benefits going away, things like that. And, and Democrats, I know they want, I know they talked about Obamacare, I know they want the subsidies. And that's, you know, it's a thing that exists. But the messaging of the, of the shutdown ended up using the SNAP benefits, things like that so prominently that what you had was a party arguing that Donald Trump was taking food out of the mouths of starving children. And therefore we are upset that the government is reopening and we're feeding the children. Again, you can't argue both sides of that. The Democrats, the government is reopening in part because the Democrats won the argument that they were making, but now they're arguing against their own argument.
- [13:21]
John Podhoretz
But politics is not static. What these eight, seven, whatever the number is of Democrats who brought this to the 60 vote threshold so that the.7,7. Okay, so, so that we could get to this point where cloture can be achieved in the Senate and a bill can be voted on to reopen the government to continue federal spending pretty much at the same levels that it was at before the shutdown. What, what they intuited or believed or is a simply a rational thing is like, okay, they got, they scored a victory with the strategy that they used in October. November is a different month. There are a lot of other things going on. Pay is really starting to bite. They can't keep all the air traffic controllers working. SNAP isn't. There isn't even if, even if Trump wanted to have all federal benefits paid under the SNAP program by the federal government, some of which are paid by the states that the coffers are emptying. So next week, the politics are different from this week and the week after. The politics are really different and things shift. You got what you wanted out of the shutdown, Move off the shutdown. But the world of the leftist podcast influencer and the leftist donor and the leftist TV person on Ms. Now, or whatever we're supposed to call it now can't. They're like a dog with a bone.
- [15:03]
Seth Mandel
They. I believe it's. I believe it's M. Snow.
- [15:07]
John Podhoretz
M. Snow. That would be good. Yes. M. Ms. Now I had a horrible moment. This, I think if I mentioned this yesterday, I'm sorry, because now I'm feeling guilty because I'm getting old. But I turned on the TV because I wanted to see the New set of Ms. Now and had the horrible experience of turning on the tv and it was msnbc. It hadn't changed yet. So I actually had to watch, like, a minute of msnbc, which was extremely painful. It's like the moment in the great Steve Martin movie Roxanne, where he goes to the newspaper box, he puts it a quarter, he opens it, he looks at the newspaper's headline, he screams, and he shoves the newspaper, puts a quarter in, puts the newspaper back in the box, and runs away. That was like my experience of hitting channel 14 here on spectrum in Manhattan and actually having to watch minute of msnbc. But they want. They like, wow, we won. Let's enjoy. Let's have encore. Let's play the same song five times over again. Because I enjoyed it so much the first time that the shutdown seemed to be punishing Trump. So, in fact, their colleagues helped them. This is good for the Democrats, not bad for the Democrats. It's good for the. Maybe if it's. If it's a little good for the Republicans. Maybe they just think anything that's good for the Republicans is bad for them. But I don't. And, Eliana, you said you thought that they had caved, but, you know, caving on bad policy, that is gonna make you look really bad in two weeks. You can call that a cave, but it's actually more like, thank you for caving maybe.
- [16:51]
Eliana Johnson
Well, the Democrats got nothing out of this. And take away. I mean, you, You. We talked about this a little bit yesterday where you were arguing this helped them in the elections. And I said yesterday, I think Democrats would have done well last week regardless. So maybe they got some points on the margins. But these, The. The races last week weren't one on the margins. They were won by 15 points in Virginia and 13 points in New Jersey. And, like, these were blowouts. So I don't really think the shutdown mattered a ton when it came to the elections. I mean, the other thing I think is interesting to note here is Donald Trump. The White House's strategy here was to make this shutdown as absolutely, like, the most painful it possibly could be. So Trump went to Russ Vogt, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and said, what. What are all the tools we have in our tools toolbox to extract the most possible pain. So he threatened to withhold back pay from federal workers. They refused to pay. They refused to use, like, you know, the tools. They had to pay food stamps, the flights were shut down, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like they did things that no previous president has done during shutdowns, exercising executive power in this and Senator Angus King is quoted in the New York Times saying standing up to Donald Trump didn't work. It actually gave him more power. And I think like that's the takeaway that some of these Democrats who came to compromise are left with.
- [18:43]
John Podhoretz
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- [21:23]
Christine Rosen
Well, and he played no it's important to note that unlike previous government shutdowns, he didn't even attempt to play any sort of role as a negotiation. Being part of the negotiations, he stood back. He was punishing, as Eliana says. I think though it was he he was starting to overstep that use of his power when he went and started scolding, you know, air traffic controllers, for example, there would have come a point of diminishing returns for that strategy. I think we were about to reach it. But the Democrat polls about the Democrats and support for the Democrats were also going in the wrong direction for them. So it they both, both sides had plenty of evidence that it was time to get this thing done and hopefully enough people will be able to travel back for the vote, which is now, I guess, set for Wednesday so that by the end of the week we'll have a, I would say functioning government, but we'll have an open government. That's what we'll have.
- [22:12]
Seth Mandel
The great, the great irony is that they can't get back until they reopen the government so that they have people to so they have the air traffic controllers working. But to get the air traffic controllers working, they need to reopen the government. So now we're in, you know, some sort of Schrodington, you know.
- [22:33]
John Podhoretz
Yes. Welcome to Schrodington's Cat, Schrodinger's dog.
- [22:37]
Christine Rosen
We're in a catch 22. How's that for Veterans Day?
- [22:41]
John Podhoretz
So I'm going to not that we should have the same conversation. This is like no exit or something. We're just going to have the same conversation every day. But I'm going to bite back at the idea that the, that the, the shutdown didn't help the Democrats, it didn't help them on the margins. But when was what was the last previously longest shutdown ever was in 2019. Was, was another shutdown under Trump in 2019. Did that have an effect? Did anybody remember it on Election Day? Probably not. However, Trump has two liabilities and the Republicans have the liabilities that he has in this regard. On the one hand, he is arrogating an immense amount of power to himself that is thrilling to the 35% of people who are with him, you know, until the last dog dies. And seems to be a matter of indifference to something unnerving, to something terrifying, to something, you know, horrifying in every possible way for the other 65% of Americans. The arrogation of power, the assumption of executive authority, the kinds of things that you're talking about that he was doing with Russ Vaught, Eliana and then the other is chaos and that he's a sower of chaos and that, you know, you don't know what's going on. He's all over the place. He's tearing down the east wing, he's doing this, he's doing that. However you want to slice looks like everything are sort of like spinning out of control and that is a bad look. Like you can't simultaneously be power mad and power hungry and then look like everything is just in a kind of tornado, tornado, storm and nothing is pinned down. I don't think that will help Republicans in 2026 the way I think that is exactly what brought Trump down in 2020, obviously with the accelerant of COVID and his inconstant behavior during COVID But that was all presaged by the Washington chaos of 2019 that fit into an already established narrative that Trump was a sower of discord and confusion.
- [25:04]
Christine Rosen
But there's a, I would add there's a third part of it now in his second term that he's starting to fall prey to and he should really think about reversing course, is that he, if he arrogates all this power and he's constantly claiming he's going to fix things, he hasn't done any, he hasn't done enough for the economy, even in messaging for. And he, he was recently interviewed by Laura Ingraham, who's obviously a very, you know, most of her interviews are an exercise in extreme journalistic flattery of Dear Leader. But even she pushed back on some of that. She said people are saying that prices are too high for energy bills, grocery bills. They're worried about being able to pay for things. What do you have to say to that? And his message was that's just not true. You know, the tariffs are going to do this. This is, he completely denied anyone's lived reality or lived experience, as we like to say. And he sounded to me exactly like Joe Biden during the crisis of inflation, saying, oh, it's not that bad. You're going to save 2 cents on your 4th of July hot dogs. That is a big mistake for him because he's a deal maker. But none of his deals are actually turning into real law, real legislation. And many of his deals are going to get struck down by various courts, including this, potentially the tariffs in the Supreme Court. So his legacy is just going to be his wheeling and dealing while the American public's begging for some sort economic relief. And he will, I think, make it much more difficult for Republican messaging in 2026 because they have to answer to voters about the economy. And so far that chaos now added to it. This denialism about the state of things for, for the average voter is not going to help them. And they're tied, you know, like an anchor to a sinking ship. To him, in terms of messaging, this.
- [26:37]
John Podhoretz
Is a very important point because it also represents a gigantic missed opportunity for him and for the right in this sense. We have heard now the hot word of 2025, after abundance, which is related to this, is affordability. Right? Mamdani ran on affordability. All these thinkers on the right are talking about the conservative version of the Mamdani affordability crisis. Meaning what is the salient detail that we keep hearing about that is now everywhere and is of Alar everyone, which is that the average age of the first time homebuyer in the United States is now 40. Right? You look at that, you think that can't be right. How can that be? You can't afford a house until you're 40. The median price of a house has gone up 50 to 100% depending on what, where the market is in a generation. What is going on here? The Republicans and the right have a powerful and winning answer to this problem, which is building a house in the United States, no matter where you are, is too expensive. We need to deregulate the housing market wherever it is under local circumstances. Sometimes it's too expensive because of regulatory frameworks that cause safety, require safety measures on the building of houses that make them unaffordable to people who only make $70,000 a year or something like that. There's, that there's the cost, increasing the.
- [28:27]
Christine Rosen
Cost of materials for new construction, particularly.
- [28:30]
John Podhoretz
The tariffs from Canada because we get a lot of lumber from Canada that we need to build houses. Now if you deregulate, you also and create a world in which housing starts to really be created at the levels that it needs to be created. That there of course is an enormous amount of economic activity that goes along with that. Construction jobs, you know, whatever it, you know, selling furniture, all, all this stuff you need to put into a house. And the reason that this crisis exists is because the population of the United States is now well in excess of 330 million people. A great many more people are single than used to be rather than married. And the housing stock has not kept pace with the population growth, creating scarcity and shortage. And if you want to help the American economy, the American worker, the American dream, all of that, follow the Republican policies that have been enumerated on the right by think tanks, by everybody for 40 years on how to solve this problem. Democrats do not have good answers on.
- [29:47]
Christine Rosen
This, but the magic book, okay, but I have to push back on. I think you're right on principle and on policy, but the MAGA coalition isn't able to do that. The Republican Party is maga and they are not going to turn to think, look at aei. We have a wonderful housing policy group. They do amazing work. No way is Donald Trump going to cite those people. And also he, his answer to this was another gimmick. It was we'll have a 50 year mortgage. Clearly not being able to calculate that the amount that these, that that's not actually relief for a young would be homebuyer. It's going to cost them more down the line.
- [30:18]
Seth Mandel
And also it's not going to free up how, it's not going to create more housing to just give people the ability to hang for 20 extra years. But he's.
- [30:29]
John Podhoretz
Or to build up equity. If you have a 50 year mortgage, you're only going to start developing equity in the house, which is how you get a profit from your house and then move on to your next house until the 15th year that you've been paying off the mortgage. The entire first third of a mortgage period is interest. So that's the law of nines. That's how mortgages work. And so it's like we have never.
- [30:54]
Seth Mandel
Part of this is that the administration is, is run according to the principles of real estate. There's peace in the Middle east for the first time in 3,000 years, according to the president, because of real estate. Because Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and you know, the whole thing is like New York City real estate. And I think he's extra vulnerable to this because it's like you're, this is you, you're the real estate man. You're, you're Bob the builder. In this conversation, you are supposed to have, if you have solutions to anything, it should be this. And you can go around and say, look how much better I've made life for people 6,000 miles away. With my experience in real estate, and people will say, well, can we have some of that here? And also, the Republicans don't have the same coalitional constraints. Right. The Republicans don't worry about the greens and environmental groups that want, you know, a thousand years of testing on, on something beforehand that they don't have. The, the amount of red tape that could be cut if you're willing to barge forward is higher on the right because you won't get bogged down in infighting because pretty much everybody will agree to just cut that red tape. Well, but, but it should be perfect.
- [32:15]
Christine Rosen
But you talk to any contractor and they will tell you there are two Trump policies that are affecting a lot of this. The tariffs, obviously, with construction costs, but then there's the labor issue, because, yes, you want to create jobs, but who's going to fill them? And immigration policy has led to a lot of chaos and churn in that arena. Now, I mean, obviously, we, we are glad to see the crackdown on illegal immigration, but that has led to a lot of uncertainty if you're an employer of people who do construction jobs, particularly in certain parts of this country. So I think you're right, John. I would love to see more Republicans running for reelection in 2026 actually treat Donald Trump like the lame duck that he technically is and say, you know what? Yes, MAGA tried this and now we notice there are these affordability issues. And here are some traditional conservative policies that, free market policies that will get us to a better place. And they don't even have to directly criticize the tariffs. They just have to go in a different direction.
- [33:06]
John Podhoretz
They can even be vulgar. They can say, this is all just a payoff to the union boss. Like, it's not. Like there aren't things that can be said that would be of appeal to maga, particularly in cities. The reason that construction costs are high is that building trades help control the means of production, using their power in state legislatures and with elected officials almost overwhelmingly Democratic in this case. And so there is a partisan war that can be engaged that would be of value to, you know, Elise Stefanik when she runs for governor against Kathy Hochul. I mean, it's not, it's not like there aren't benefits. And you're right that they don't want to give the AI credit. Well, you know, remember sitting there at last week's notorious Heritage foundation meeting, the blasts from the past, the voice of housing reason. Robert Rector at heritage for 47 years stood up and said, why are you giving in to all these loonies? And if Trump had only listened to Robert Rector, who was way more right wing than I am, on housing matters, he would be in a position to have an agenda that would address this very specific question that we are talking about. But, Seth, you invoked the Middle east rule. You said, he wants to make peace in the Middle East. So we will then use that to transition to the remarkable story. Hamas complaining. Hamas complaining. Can we. We're just get. I don't know. We don't have an irony music thing. You know, it's like, have Alanis Morissette's song, like a car horn in the background.
- [34:47]
Seth Mandel
Hamas is for the tiny violins. Do we have.
- [34:50]
John Podhoretz
What's the.
- [34:51]
Seth Mandel
What's the sound of the tiny violin?
- [34:52]
John Podhoretz
That there are 150 to 200 elite Hamas fighters, and guess where they are. They're trapped in the tunnels. They're trapped in the tunnels and they can't get out of the tunnels. And just. We are supposed to care that there are 150 Hamasniks trapped in the tunnels? I would like them to suffocate in the tunnels. I would like them to have gladiatorial matches to the death, to amuse themselves in the tunnels. To. These are the people who kept the Jews in the tunnels and tortured the Jews in the tunnels and sexually abused the Jews in the tunnels and killed them and starved them. And they are trying to make an international issue out of the fact that 150 of them are stuck in the tunnels. By which I mean that all they have to do is get out of the tunnels. They can get out of the tunnels. They're just going to be arrested the minute they get out of the tunnel.
- [35:53]
Seth Mandel
We should be very clear that passage.
- [35:55]
Christine Rosen
Out of the tunnels.
- [35:56]
Seth Mandel
Right?
- [35:57]
John Podhoretz
They.
- [35:57]
Seth Mandel
They are. They are making demands. Let's just be clear. The Hamas fighters are. Who are stuck in the tunnels, are making demands. We. We demand that we will not have to give up our arms, and we demand that we will not have to be deported outside the Palestinian territories or whatever. Like, if that's the. If you're in no position to make demands, but it should be very clear that Israel is like, we'd love for you guys to come on out. We'll be waiting for you. We have a whole thing set up. We have, you know, it's like when you get to the bottom of the Masada snake path and there's the guy with the lemonade. You know, it's like he's there.
- [36:39]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Seth Mandel
And the. And so, you know, they. There's no actual real controversy here, except that the Hamas fighters Don't want to come out of the tunnel. And whose fault is that? Now, the one danger here is that, you know, Turkey has gotten involved and is trying to tell people, well, they're civilians, you know, whatever. And they're hoping that people will buy that and start using those terms and start referring to them as, you know, these, these poor, unfortunate souls. But part of this, part of this, you know, this stuck in the tunnels thing is that they have not been able to breach that line. They've not been able to gain sympathy because they're not sympathetic and the world has not responded to them.
- [37:27]
John Podhoretz
I mean, let me just add to that. Nobody is claiming that any term of the Trump 20 point plan has been violated here. In other words, they could go and say, well, the Israelis are violating the terms of, of phase one of the plan. They went into the tunnels to protect themselves against the demand that they be disarmed. And now they're sitting in the tunnels. And it is literally the classic Jewish definition of chutzpah, which is you kill your parents and then you throw yourself on the mercy of the court claiming you're an orphan. You built these tunnels. You killed Jews in these tunnels. These tunnels allowed you to fight this war for two years. And now you are saying, I can't get out of the tunnel, say it's a military target.
- [38:23]
Christine Rosen
There's no other discussion to be had. It's just like having a fort where people are shooting from the fort at their enemy. And you capture the fort. It's a military target that Israel can do whatever it wants to a military target by the terms of this.
- [38:36]
Seth Mandel
And the line hasn't moved. Hamas signed a deal that said this side of the line, Israel gets to stay for now. And this side of the line, they don't. And the Hamas guys are on the wrong side of the line. Their own organization signed the deal saying, don't be on that side of the line.
- [38:59]
Eliana Johnson
So to be clear, so they're. These guys are trapped. It's 200 of them trapped in tunnels under, in Rafah, in the zone that's under the control of these Israeli military.
- [39:13]
John Podhoretz
Right? Yes, but.
- [39:14]
Eliana Johnson
And so the demands are that the Israeli military let these guys.
- [39:22]
John Podhoretz
Well.
- [39:24]
Eliana Johnson
Egypt.
- [39:25]
John Podhoretz
Right, Right. So they want safe passage. And Israel is saying, no safe passage for you. You are war criminals. But we're not gonna go into, we're not going in to confront you directly, and we're not gonna pour concrete into your hole and bury you alive. We're just gonna wait you out until you wanna come out and stop Your whining. Stop your whining. You lost the war, you signed the deal. Get come out and take your punishment because you didn't win. And you know, this is what happens when you kill Jews and lose. Yeah. And Turkey is playing games and Witkoff and Kushner going back to the Middle east and there's a little fear in Israel that they're going to take up the cause of these fighters so that we can move on to phase two. And they want to move on to phase two. I am very skeptical that that is actually something that Witkoff and Kushner would do. I mean, we don't really know this, but I mean, Israeli intelligence is claiming that this is a very elite group. This isn't just, you know, a bunch of, you know, 15 year olds who threw the uniform on, you know, after everybody else got killed in the last three weeks. That this is actually an elite bunch and that their removal from the battlefield would be a signature achievement in disarming Hamas and bringing the war to the conclusion that the many nations that were involved in the 20 point plan's implementation are for. So it's just a question whether the.
- [41:02]
Seth Mandel
Propaganda, I think this week, I think that was tested, right. How strongly Witkoff and Kushner would fight for these guys. Because Hamas and Hamas's backers wanted Israel to have to release those Hamas niks in return for getting back the body of Hadar golden, the Israeli soldier who's who was killed by Hamas and his body was taken into Gaza 14 years ago and you know, predating the war and all that, and you know, the longest held hostage body left, I would say, you know, and one that the Israelis had been waiting for a long time. And so that was the test. The test was, can the Israelis get Hadar Golden's body back without releasing all these Hamas nicks back into, I mean, essentially into battle. And the answer was yes, Hadar Goldin is back. And had that been a real chip that Witkoff want, would have wanted Hamas to be able to use. That was the moment they would have used it. And it's very clear that Wycoff and Kushner said no. And it's very clear that Trump would not have agreed to it either, that you were not letting these guys. This, that's a separate. You're asking for a new prisoner swap deal. And you know, if you're Trump, Trump is saying to them, my deal says you give back all the bodies. That's what my deal says. So there's nothing else that needs to be done and it would be to reopen. This is in a way something that would really undermine the deal. So the people that worry that the Hamas nix caught in the tunnel or could undermine the ceasefire, the truth is really the opposite. As long as Wyckoff and Kushner and Trump don't get rolled on something like this out of empathy for a bunch of elite Hamas commandos, the ceasefire is fine. Because what they are doing is strictly adhering to it.
- [43:03]
John Podhoretz
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Seth Mandel
That means you can stream, scroll, shop.
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John Podhoretz
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Seth Mandel
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Seth Mandel
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John Podhoretz
Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no ding decline cards won't hurt your credit scores. If you aren't initially approved, initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores. Experian this is why for two years I've been saying that Israel needs to be perceived to have won the war because the ancillary benefits at the end of it are unknowable but will redound in Israel's favor. And this is lesson number one. The war is over. Were Trump and his team to say, be magnanimous and let Hamas out, that would be an indication that the war's conclusion, or, you know, whatever you might want to call this, if it's not a pure conclusion, was more ambiguous than it appeared at first, and that Hamas had more tools in its toolbox remaining than it should have, given where everything was and they don't. And and the Turks have no ability to lever. I don't know what power the Turks might lever on their behalf, or whether the Turks, aside from paying lip service to this, even have any interest in levering on their behalf because it's time to move on. Hamas is the loser. If you want to live to fight Israel another day, you're going to need another long term strategy that uses somebody else because they've been crushed. And what's more, not only that, but how much world attention is being given to the fact that Israel is pounding the hell out of Lebanon and Hezbollah. It is. And it is doing so in order to prevent Hezbollah from rising up again after the unbelievably successful attacks and counter strikes of last fall. Israel against Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is making noises and playing little games and popping their heads up here and there and Israel's like, no. And smashing the crap out of them. And I don't know whether European media are crying crocodile tears over Hezbollahs, but I don't see it much. I don't read non English.
- [46:19]
Seth Mandel
And the Trump administration is backing Israel on this. Again, this is the other message that they are sending in this, you know, over the Gaza ceasefire, which is he wants the Lebanon ceasefire to hold too. And people are trying to fool him, you know, him being Trump and the administration into thinking that Israel's bombing is what puts it at risk. But the Americans are saying, we had, we, we set down this document that said disarm Hezbollah. Are Hezbollah disarmed?
- [46:52]
John Podhoretz
No.
- [46:53]
Seth Mandel
So don't come to me and say, you know, Israel is carrying out these. So, so the Trump administration has been very clear. We came to agreements. The agreements have terms. We're sticking by those terms because the second we let you reopen negotiations on the terms, the whole thing falls apart and so does the other ceasefire to the north. They can't let either one of them undermine all the ceasefires. So as long as the Trump administration sticks to its guns on this, which it is, there's no path out of this, even for international sympathy for Hezbollah and for Hamas, because the Europeans said this is a great deal. Trump got a good deal. We back this deal. We'll do whatever we can to help this deal be upheld and the peace be upheld. And everybody likes the cease fire. Everybody who doesn't like Israel, I'm saying, likes. They like the ceasefire, they want the cease fire and they're following Trump on this. And there simply is no market for the whining that we're hearing coming from these terrorists.
- [48:00]
John Podhoretz
Eliana, you and the Free Beacon have a story today. I made mention of the that which must not be named Ms. Whatever the hell its name is now. But msnow M. Snow, as I say, but you have a story today about the effort to promote the new version of MSNBC and how they're doing it. Could you, in the Free Beacon just now, would you Care to share the details with our listeners and viewers here?
- [48:38]
Eliana Johnson
First, John, I'm distracted because you said seven or eight Democratic senators, and I jumped in and said seven, but it's actually eight with Angus King.
- [48:48]
John Podhoretz
So it's eight that caucus.
- [48:50]
Eliana Johnson
Eight in the caucus.
- [48:50]
John Podhoretz
Democrats, because Angus King of Maine is independent, but caucus is with the Democrats.
- [48:55]
Eliana Johnson
Okay, So I just wanted to make a record of how many times I could correct myself in a single.
- [49:00]
John Podhoretz
It's okay. I make five mistakes a show, and I never correct myself. That's my never.
- [49:05]
Christine Rosen
So Liana is bringing some rigor here.
- [49:07]
John Podhoretz
I promise. Promise no factual accuracy. I just want to make. I acknowledge repeated errors. We talk a lot, and we're not sitting here with Daniel.
- [49:23]
Eliana Johnson
When I jump in, he'll say, I got the facts. 7.
- [49:32]
John Podhoretz
You're doing me a favor because I'm usually the guy who screws all the facts up. So you have you as our. As our newest. Right. You can take some of the heat off me.
- [49:42]
Eliana Johnson
All right.
- [49:43]
John Podhoretz
Okay.
- [49:43]
Eliana Johnson
So msnbc versant/msnow, they're off with a $20 million marketing campaign so that everyone in America can know about msnow and all the great work they're doing. They have a little bit of a problem, which is that all of their anchors are white. Well, msnbc, basically. Okay, I'm speaking in generalities. Well, MSNBC has the largest black audience in cable news. And so they have a slick new video, part of an ad campaign promoting their forced name change to Ms. Now. And we see amid, you know, Rachel Maddow and clips from Martin Luther King Jr. It's all narrated by Rachel Maddow, just random images of black people. And so we start looking at, who are these people? And it turns out they are paid actors to be random black people in this video. And we look up, where else have these people been featured? We have, you know, one black commercial actor who's done boxer ads and KFC ads and zip recruiter ads and another one who's been girl number two at an audition. And so we did. We put together our own video pausing in on the random black people in the MSNMS now promotional ad and showing you where else you might have seen these faces. And the. The promotional video also features Stephanie Rule's gobsmackingly large diamond ring.
- [51:30]
John Podhoretz
Well, Stephanie Rule deserves a large diamond ring. She's a nice person, and I guess she's happily married. And she was very successful on Wall street before she joined MSNBC and was a business reporter. So she has a big ring. And you know what people like Bling. They like bling. And they like, you know, this is like the Andrew Cuomo ads of 2025. The Andrew Cuomo ads of 2025 were so patently false that you knew that the street, the people on the street who were being interviewed for the Andrew Cuomo ads were paid actors. Like, they were too on the nose not to be paid actors.
- [52:15]
Christine Rosen
For me, it reminded me and it's hilarious. Everyone should go to the Free Beacon and see. I mean, it's hilarious. The takedown is epic, but it reminded me of the Kamala masculinity ad. Remember that? All the man, the. All the, you know, the men with their man buns talking earnestly to camera about how it's a different kind of masculinity. And I don't know, it reminded me more of that because it was such a parody of the thing. They think they're connecting to their audience by creating the ad in the first place.
- [52:41]
Eliana Johnson
I also recommend this is not the Commentary recommends, but I recommend we have a great piece up today on the Credential, the only credentialing organization for public policy schools in the United States. That is, it has gone overseas to give its stamp of approval. It's credentialing public policy schools in China and other dictatorships which, you know, the students of at those schools go on to become CCP officials. So it's a fascinating story and I highly recommend it.
- [53:13]
John Podhoretz
Unbelievable. Okay, Seth, you have a Commentary recommends?
- [53:18]
Seth Mandel
I do. I am going to, although it's only two episodes in as I speak, recommend Pluribus, the new Vince Gilligan show on Apple tv. I don't think they call it Apple TV plus anymore. So I can't keep track of Ms. Now Apple TV plus, hbo. Hbo. Now hbo you. Yeah, but the plus is got Apple TV has this show called Pluribus. It's with Rhea Seehorn is the. Is the star. She was on Better Call Saul and was beloved on Better Call Saul. And Vince Gilgan, the creator of that whole universe, the Stall universe, has created this show. And it is. It's so good, at least through the first two episodes, that it almost makes you angry with the genius that you're seeing because somebody was sitting on this idea. The plot is this.
- [54:17]
John Podhoretz
You don't want to say too much.
- [54:18]
Seth Mandel
No.
- [54:20]
John Podhoretz
In fact, I am going to cut you off here. Oh, okay. Because having watched the first episode, I think it is important that people come at this as raw as possible. As it is told, it's not a puzzle show really. I mean, there's obviously a Central mystery in it, but it is being very plain about what's happening as you're watching it happen. And one of the pleasures of it is that it's unfolding for this Rhea Seehorn character in real time. What has happened on the Earth? Something happens. And the first 10 minutes are. Pull out to say, oh, something's happening. And then you zoom in on a single person to whom the world changes. And I think, but anyway, you are so. But praise it. I just think, yeah, no, it's.
- [55:16]
Seth Mandel
It's. It's. It is. It is a patient show. The reason that it is able to do that, is able to not really hide the ball at all, as you say, John, is because it devotes episodes and large parts of episodes to this, letting the scenes play out. The first episode is, you know, everything happens and it. And it unfolds slowly. It does not, you know, he. They let the whole episode breathe and unfold slowly. The second episode is the same thing. There's a real plot point in the second episode, but it unfolds slowly. And one of the. One of the typical classic Vince Gilligan things to do is that, you know, in the beginning of the second episode, a character, you know, who sort of becomes introduced as a. As a major character is flying a cargo plane somewhere. And, you know, you eventually see where it is, and none of it, Nothing she does is surprising. You know, that's not the point. But the scene is people on the Runway, wherever she is packing things on and taking things off the plane. And then you see her walk on the plane, and you see her sit down in the pilot's chair and click the first light and turn the first engine on. And then you see the one propeller spin because she turned the first one on, and she checks it, and then you see her check the other one. The whole thing inside this cargo plane is very much what Vince Gilligan excels at, which is the tension is not, you know, where is she gonna go? So much as it makes the things that are happening. You watch the things as they happen. You don't start the show by saying, hey, so there was this thing that happened 10 years ago, and now look where we are, or something like that. You live through it and learn as it goes. Just like Seaborne's character.
- [57:12]
Christine Rosen
This is why we all know how to cook meth now. So it's like.
- [57:15]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, but it's, you know, the pacing. The pacing is what's so great about it. Because there's no. There's no rush. Yeah, there's no rush. There's no manic dialogue.
- [57:26]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, there's.
- [57:27]
Seth Mandel
And every episode doesn't have this, like, insane cliffhanger. There's this one big mystery, and we're all going to try to figure it out, but it's very clearly going to go through the season with us walking through. You know, there's. There really isn't very much dramatic irony. You know, you get to sort of enjoy the mystery as the viewer, too.
- [57:45]
John Podhoretz
So it unfolds as though it's the first one of these things that I've ever seen where it's almost like you could imagine that you are Rhea Seehorn and that this is happening to you because it all essentially happens in real time to her. When the thing happens, that happens. And there's a. There's a French movie called Tell no One, which is based on a Harlan Coban novel that has the best foot chase scene that I've ever seen. It's like 15 years ago and you can find it. It's all over streaming. It's in French, even though it's based on an American novel. And it's a guy who essentially breaks out of jail and is in Paris and starts running away from his captors. And so you're the guy and he's running through the streets. He doesn't know where he is, and cars are behind him and things are behind him. And it goes on for 15 minutes. And I've never seen anything like it, because you're not watching it from the perspective of, oh, my God, this car almost crashed into that car. Oh, this guy almost grabbed him. It's him running with some dim sense of who's behind him and where he needs to go. And the effect is astonishing because you've never seen anything like it before. So much is always. Because it's not really a plot point. It is a guy escaping. And that's what this show has that I think I've never seen before in a work of speculative fiction. Science fiction is, what if it were happening to you? What if you were the hero and things happen and then you're like, what the hell is going on? And how would you react as it was happening? So it is a great pressure on.
- [59:50]
Seth Mandel
The actor, you know, on. See Horn, whoever the actor would be in that situation is immense. And so you are watching some real acting talent because you. Her reactions have to match every moment. And they. And they go along, you know, slowly as it happens. And then. And of course. And I'll just say there is a Peter Bergman sort of cameo that is so perfectly Wonderful.
- [60:16]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [60:17]
Seth Mandel
It will make you, you know, it will bring you joy amid this.
- [60:21]
John Podhoretz
Like, I got to share this with you, too, because. So I am little known because I'm embarrassed to mention it, but I have been in the course of my life an aficionado of the daytime soap opera. Now they don't really exist anymore.
- [60:35]
Christine Rosen
And to extend your commentary, confession segment, I'm liking this.
- [60:39]
John Podhoretz
And to the extent that they exist now, they really are. For this cohort of people older than I who've been watching the two or three that are left for 40 years, and everybody on them is 70 years old with unbelievable amounts of plastic surgery to make them look like they're some indeterminate age. And these characters are remarrying each other for the 11th time. That's the new. But back in the 70s and 80s, when I was watching soap operas after school and stuff like that, you know, they were the most florid, hilarious, but very involving forms of daytime daily entertainment as long as you could shut your brain off while you watch them. And now everybody gets this from Bridgerton or from Down Abbey and stuff like very high, much more high end stuff. But that's what the soap opera was.
- [61:29]
Eliana Johnson
It's called the Real Housewives.
- [61:32]
John Podhoretz
The Real Housewives, right, Exactly.
- [61:33]
Eliana Johnson
Oh, my gosh.
- [61:34]
John Podhoretz
Right. Yes. But Peter Bergman, who appears all of a sudden in the middle of the show, is the veteran daytime soap opera actor of my lifetime. He has been on, I believe, the Young and the Restless for 50 years, or close to 50 years, and he pops up like it's. This is like the dream job of a lifetime for a guy like this who has basically been making his living as a journeyman actor. Very. You know, it's not like this is something that you get celebrated for doing unless you get famous for never winning an Emmy like Susan Lucci was at one point in her life. But only people, the only actors you ever know from soap operas are the ones who escape them and then become big stars, like, you know, Meg Ryan or somebody like that who was on the soap opera and then graduated to stardom. So Peterborough is just this kind of like work a day journeyman daytime soap opera actor. And suddenly he has this bit in Pluribus and he is astoundingly good, using his plastic soap opera actor qualities as part of the camera bit. But this is where Vince Gilligan is like, insanely inspired to have chosen him among all the actors on the planet Earth to inhabit this role. So that is a very fun little detail about Pluribus. I'm echoing Your recommendation? There are two episodes up for Apple and then it's going to go once a week. I love this form, this idea that they get you started and then it turns into a weekly show. Because I'm not a binger. I don't know how anybody has time to binge. And then if you don't binge and then people start telling you about what happened in episode seven and they did binge, then you're like, ah, the hell with it. I'm not gonna watch it anymore because I heard the big, I heard the big reveal. So I'm, I'm, I love going back to the classic old TV style of non binge. I don't know where you guys are.
- [63:41]
Seth Mandel
Are you dependent on the type of show, Truthfully, like you, you can't. You can't really.
- [63:45]
John Podhoretz
But how do you have six children? I don't understand how you.
- [63:48]
Christine Rosen
I'm becoming the middle aged and the restless. I don't have to wrap it up, okay?
- [63:52]
Seth Mandel
There's no, there's no binging for me unless I'm on, you know, transatlantic flight or something like that. I miss, I miss the binging. But I think even with the binging you can, it only works with certain shows and not this type of show where you can, you know, because it also encourages you to miss details. Bingeing encourages you to not pay.
- [64:12]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [64:12]
Seth Mandel
So it's close attention. Because of all if I'm going to be sitting here for five hours, right, missing 10 seconds doesn't mean anything. But if it's one episode and then you have to wait a week, you know what you're paying attention to because you know, you have to be able to recognize things that came up a week or a week earlier to each other.
- [64:29]
John Podhoretz
So Eliana Binger, not binger.
- [64:32]
Eliana Johnson
I'm like four years away from being able to watch a single episode.
- [64:35]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's true, that's true. That's right. You have two little kids. Television, okay. And Christine, not a binger. Okay. And Christine is gone. She's back. She's gone. Leaving here. But I do have to go. We have to go. She's. She was setting me. I'm shutting my camera off. You're blathering.
- [64:51]
Seth Mandel
So turn in next week.
- [64:54]
John Podhoretz
Leave Christine alone. Let her get, let her get to work. And Eliana and Seth and I'm John Pothor. It's keep the candle burn.
- [65:10]
Eliana Johnson
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John Podhoretz
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Eliana Johnson
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