Loading summary
Transcript109 lines
- [00:01]
John Podhoretz
You know that one friend who somehow knows everything about money?
- [00:04]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [00:05]
John Podhoretz
Now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Experian, your big financial friend. It's the app that helps you check.
- [00:12]
Brett Stevens
Your FICO score, find ways to save.
- [00:14]
John Podhoretz
And basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what? It's totally free. So go on, download the Experian app. Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer.
- [00:31]
Matthew Continetti
Hope for the best, Expect the worst.
- [00:38]
John Podhoretz
Some pre champagne, some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, Expect the worst. Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Monday, June 3rd 30th, 2025. I'm John Pot Horde, the editor of Commentary magazine, delighted to announce today that as of today, the last day of June, our YouTube channel stands at 14, 800 subscribers. We called or our own Matt Continetti called earlier this month to bring our numbers up from 10,000 to 15,000 subscribers. All we need is 200 more of you to go to YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel, and we will hit that 15,000 number. It is a very serious benchmark. It opens up all new algorithmical possibilities for our YouTube channel being seen by many more people so that our wisdom, our brilliance, our recommendations, our morosity, all of that can be exposed to more people in America and across the world. So please, if you have a moment Today, go to YouTube, go to the Commentary Magazine podcast, which is its name on YouTube, and just hit subscribe. Like and subscribe. Both would be nice. But hit subscribe, we'll hit that number. I will be thanking you deeply tomorrow. And with that, let me introduce today's panel executive editor, Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [02:19]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [02:20]
John Podhoretz
The aforementioned Washington Commentary columnist, Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [02:24]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [02:25]
John Podhoretz
Our social Commentary columnist, Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [02:28]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [02:29]
John Podhoretz
And joining us today, Commentary's contributing editor, Pulitzer Prize winner, all around Sage, and the master of a beautiful Westchester county estate, Brett Stevens. Hi, Brett.
- [02:47]
Brett Stevens
Good to see you. From my estate, quote, unquote.
- [02:51]
John Podhoretz
We seem to have a little bit of a connection issue here.
- [02:57]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, I don't know why I have all my bars. Let me see. Maybe I have too many windows open.
- [03:03]
John Podhoretz
You know what? That can be it. You shouldn't have many windows open because you should be focusing like a laser beam.
- [03:11]
Brett Stevens
No, Commentary magazine, they were open from before. O, you have my complete attention.
- [03:20]
John Podhoretz
You don't want to, like, do that photograph of your screen and then share it with us because you remember 10 years ago when some people showed hey, look, there's a terrible thing. And they would take a photograph of their screen and there would be like open windows that said things like meet beautiful Russian wives, stuff like that. Anyway, for the record, John, for the.
- [03:44]
Brett Stevens
Record, I only have the Ukrainian wives window open. I should have even said that. That is obvious. Joke.
- [03:52]
John Podhoretz
We're going to get to that.
- [03:53]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, I'm boycotting Russian wives.
- [03:55]
John Podhoretz
But good, but a good one. And we, and we should talk some about Ukraine a little later. But first, I guess we really have to talk about the big domestic news of the weekend, which is the initial passage in the Senate of the one big beautiful bill, which is the massive budget bill that most importantly retains the Trump tax cuts of 2017 and then has a whole lot of other stuff in it that is all there to satisfy congressmen and senators and do things that they want it to do or to provide fodder for congressmen and senators who want to use what's in the bill to run against the Republican Party and Republican candidates for office and 2026. Matthew Con Netti, as our resident One big beautiful bill expert, what can you. Well, you're our resident expert.
- [04:52]
Matthew Continetti
I'm not saying calling me an expert in the Talmud. The One big beautiful bill is so lengthy and so complex, it would take a lifetime to reveal all of its secrets. But I have been following its passage very closely. And over the weekend it did meet a critical test, which was a procedural vote to begin the debate. And the big beautiful bill passed 51 49. There were two Republicans, Rand Paul, who has been against the bill from the very beginning because it includes an increase in the debt ceiling, and Thom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, Republican, first elected in 2014, up for reelection next year. He decided to make his stand not on spending or the debt or deficit, but on the changes to Medicaid that are in the bill. In particular, he believes, he says, that some rural hospitals will be hurt by the changes in the Medicaid payment procedures that are in the Senate version. Tillis, of course, has been a burr in Trump's side for some time. He is the reason, Senator Tillis, that we have Judge Jeanine as the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, which I'm actually very excited about. But the reason we have Judge Deneen is because Tillis blocked the appointment of Trump's first candidate for that role, which was Ed Martin, the conservative activist. So here he is again, going against Trump. Trump immediately called for a primary challenge to Tillis. Once the vote was recorded, and within 24 hours, Tillis announced that he would not be running for reelection. Big change, I might say, from what I had been hearing from Tillis earlier in the year where he said that he was unafraid of any potential MAGA challenge. Clearly that was not the case. But just to look forward, the voting on the amendments to the bill will begin at 9:00am Eastern Time. And that should take us through tonight when most observers here in Washington believe that the bill will secure final passage in the Senate. Still could be some surprises. You never know. But remember, because it's being passed through the reconciliation process, you only need 51 votes and vice President Vance will be on hand to break a tie Once.
- [07:18]
John Podhoretz
Was on hand to break.
- [07:20]
Matthew Continetti
It was on hand on Saturday night. He didn't.
- [07:21]
John Podhoretz
It was unnecessary, right?
- [07:23]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, it was unnecessary because there was.
- [07:24]
John Podhoretz
A thought that maybe Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Murkowski.
- [07:28]
Matthew Continetti
Murkowski could vote against it this time and that would require. That would mean that Vance would be necessary. It's hard to say because the bill is so complicated because it has so many things that Republicans support broadly. And then it has these different, various details that different Republicans dislike. There was a big debate over, for example, the sale of public lands that Senator Lee of Utah wanted to include in the bill as part of the Trump housing deregulation. That was modified, if not removed altogether in order to placate, among others, hunters who like public land.
- [08:11]
Christine Rosen
So one other AI moratorium.
- [08:14]
Matthew Continetti
Oh, yeah, that's the point.
- [08:15]
Christine Rosen
Marsha Blackburn was, was got a carve out for. I used to perhaps manipulate children and for children's safety. She did get her car about and she got it knocked down to five years.
- [08:26]
John Podhoretz
Five years.
- [08:27]
Matthew Continetti
Name, image, likeness can be regulated and then also for children can, can be regulated as part of the AI moratorium, so to speak, on state regulation that's in the bill. Different from the House version.
- [08:41]
John Podhoretz
In other words. In other words, states are, Are. Are prevented from creating individual AI rules under the interstate commerce clause with the carve out that you can't use it to affect children and you cannot.
- [09:03]
Matthew Continetti
Harass Scarjo. It's really a Scarlett Johansson.
- [09:05]
John Podhoretz
That's right. You cannot. You cannot. Yeah.
- [09:09]
Matthew Continetti
Leave Scarjo alone. That's been my motto for many years.
- [09:11]
John Podhoretz
Very important that Brett Stevens. Brett Stevens not be AI'd into supporting Zoran Mamdani, for example. Okay, so, so those are the. There are other things and oh my gosh, there are some hilarious. And by the way, we're going to find out, as with all these bills, even though now it's so much different from what it was in, like, 19 when they started doing some of these sorts of things in the, in the 80s and 90s when it would be three weeks later that somebody would dig out that someone had put in half a sentence that on page 1200 that, say, made Rupert Murdoch sell his Boston TV station or his Boston newspaper, that kind of thing, they were buried purposely in these thousand, thousands and thousands of page bills so that no one would know they were there, and then they would just surface. And now you do have these armies, battalions of citizen watchers and groups and all of that who just dive in and, and, and take it apart like, like someone taking apart a Maserati engine.
- [10:19]
Matthew Continetti
There's maybe a lesson of that this time because Chuck Schumer forced the reading of the bill, which took most of yesterday. And so senators, you know, for better or worse, can say that they actually, you know, were exposed to the bill's contents.
- [10:36]
John Podhoretz
Yes. You know, but, you know, what happens is that the way, the way that these kinds of provisions that shock the conscience when they come out, that it says Act, Act 332 of the Civil Code shall be amended to say not instead of right, right, right, the word not shall be struck. And that will suddenly allow $25 trillion in public spending on some provisions simply by saying not shall be removed from this sentence. So you also then have to do the Talmudic interpretation to figure out what somebody, what some was up to, getting somebody to do that kind of thing with one of these bills.
- [11:20]
Matthew Continetti
I just will conclude by saying the bill seems to be on track for the July 4th signing ceremony that President Trump has long wanted. After, if the bill is passed by the Senate tonight, as most people expect, of course we could be wrong, but most people expect it to happen, then it will return to the House. You know, the House is always dicey, but throughout this process, President Trump and importantly Vice President Vance have really, I think, kind of applied the pressure in a classic political sense to get their party in line here. And it will be a major victory, one of many over the past 10 days.
- [12:01]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, well, that. I think that's a larger point that Brett, maybe we can take up, which is Trump has had an extraordinary month here as a, you know, in American politics. I mean, we've seen politicians, including our last president, have these explosive months where suddenly everything goes their way and they get seven things at once, which happened with the Inflation Reduction act under Biden. But here we have Trump hitting Iran. We have these things, three major Supreme Court decisions last week that have fundamentally gone at Least I would say in a conservative direction. One of them very much favoring Trump's view that he doesn't want district judges to be blocking his executive order initiatives, you know, as a, as a nationwide matter. But a couple of other ones in the, the bill that says that parental opt outs from curricula that offend their religious sensibilities must be permitted. School districts can't prevent them anyway. He has domestically. And then of course, NATO, this, this agreement on the part of the NATO countries to in theory raise their defense spending to 5% of GDP. I mean, our, one of the main slaps against Trump's first term was that he was extraordinarily incompetent and amateurish in his application of power. I just don't think we can, I think after this month, we cannot say that anymore. This is a highly, this has become a kind of highly efficient machine in some fashion.
- [13:53]
Brett Stevens
Well, I think the, the important point here is that Trump may have used MAGA like methods of persuasion, intimidation, bullying, but they were overwhelmingly in pursuit of Republican objectives, classic Republican objectives. Stop Iran from getting a bomb, have the Supreme Court enforcement, a sense of judicial restraint. If, if the one big bill passes, which I think it will extend and deepen tax cuts and get Naito to spend more on the military. All of those were, are the sorts of objectives that you could see any former Republican president championing in his, in his own right. And it's a marked contrast, John, to the first few months of the Trump administration when it was MAGA methods in pursuit of largely MAGA objectives like a tariff war with Canada. And, you know, the, the classic staples of protectionism. The only crossover point here obviously, is on immigration where Trump, you know, if you, I don't know if you saw the last month, the numbers are in on terms of illegal border crossings. And there it's a staggering difference from, from previous administrations, certainly from the past, from the past the Biden administration. I think the whole question really, on which the Trump administration's fortunes depend is whether this will settle, as I think some reluctant Trump voters hoped back in November into the pattern of a more or less typical Republican administration pursuing more or less typical Republican objectives or the kind of populist party that Trump from time to time threatens to, to, to create or to institutionalize among Republicans.
- [16:14]
John Podhoretz
Christine, I think we find ourselves in a world in which Trump is causing liberals and leftists to advocate for things, say things and defend things that are probably not in their best interests in the short, medium and long terms. I mean, the classic dynamic one Thing is, if you want to defend the system that doesn't involve high tariffs, that's fine with me. But defending higher education, Harvard, defending sort of anti Semites, defending Mahmoud Khalil, he sort of pushed them into this stance that. So you have that you have two things or you have his own successes and then you have what he is implicitly encouraging his enemies to have to advocate. And whether or not, when push comes to shove and they have to go before voters, general election voters, that that's going to be of any great help to them.
- [17:24]
Christine Rosen
Well, I think what Trump in the second term has done to the cultural left, particularly the elite cultural left, is reflect what most Americans think about controversial issues, whether that's transgender issues, whether that's the role of higher education. And by reflecting those, they feel they have to, they have to be in opposition. Trump infuriates them, obviously. But what they don't want to reckon with and haven't yet reckoned with is the fact that most Americans are on the side of, I would say, conservative thinking on a lot of these things. Trump isn't really a conservative, as we've talked about many times. He's a populist. But to Brett's point, I think you're absolutely right. He's very politically savvy about adopting conservative ideas when, when he's got the wind at his, at his back. And he's doing that in a lot of ways. What the cultural left has not yet reckoned with is that because I think they had this window of the Biden administration where they kind of ran roughshod over a lot of normie voters, ideas of what was they. They haven't reckoned with the fact that Trump's reelection was a rebuke to those ideas, not just to the Democratic Party, those. And that will continue. We're seeing it in the courts. The fact that they are not defending parents and that they are on the side of, say, teachers unions, which a lot of parents are still upset with because of what happened during the COVID lockdowns and such. They haven't reckoned with that. And I think elections at the national level for the next 812 years will, will be that reckoning. For them, Trump is a convenient enemy. And they are missing the point when they attack Trump as a person rather than these ideas.
- [18:58]
John Podhoretz
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock between two factor authentication, strong passwords and a VPN. You try to be in control of how your info is protected, but many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful that's why.
- [19:12]
Christine Rosen
LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data.
- [19:14]
John Podhoretz
Points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Avid Reader Press. Legendary investor Ray Dalio's new book, How Countries Go the Big Cycle, explains the mechanics behind big debt crises. Larry Summer says Dalio's brilliant, iconoclastic approach is an invaluable resource. And Hank Paulson says it provides a solution to what is the biggest and most certain threat to our prosperity. Read it to understand the greatest economic issue of our time, available now, wherever books are sold.
- [19:58]
Brett Stevens
Well, and Christine makes such an important point, because you know, what the Democrats mistake, I think, has been to paint everything Trump does as an assault on the Constitution, the foundations of the Republic, you know, basic decency, morality, so forth and so on. And sometimes, in fact, some of what Trump does is an assault on the Constitution. But it means that they are in a posture, almost a default posture, of relentless and unblinking and often unthinking opposition. I mean, I'm thinking here, for instance, of Chuck Schumer and the attack on Iran. You would think that at least a few politicians would say, you know, I don't like Trump, I don't like his methods, but this was an urgent national priority. And you know what? The President got it right this time. There's got to be a few Democrats who I know in their hearts see it that way. Instead, they're making this preposterous argument that the President owed it to the country to go to Congress for congressional approval, which would have astonished, say, Bill Clinton when he bombed Iraq for four days during Operation Desert Fox in 1998 without asking for approval, or, you know, past presidents who have acted that way. And so, you know, as a result, they just kind of look feckless and silly and, and a kind of a George Costanza party of doing the opposite, whatever the opposite happens to be. And it's, it's just not serving themselves well, serving them well.
- [21:53]
Christine Rosen
So they end up dancing around a candidate for mayor of New York City who says, globalize the Intifada is exactly what I meant. Globalize the intifada. And all these Democrats are having, trying to find a way to make, to rationalize that when all they should do is say, no, that's unacceptable.
- [22:08]
John Podhoretz
And, you know, I wanted to mention. Go ahead.
- [22:12]
Abe Greenwald
They also end up looking less like elected leaders than like pundits. You know, because they sort of. Because the positions that they're taking in opposition to what Trump does, because those positions don't. They're not really viable and they don't have avenues to along which to prosecute. They end up sort of just going on shows, making speeches and just denouncing what is happening as opposed to actually doing anything or making scenes, right. You know, going down to detention centers and, you know, getting handcuffed or whatever else. But they don't actually look like they're politicians serving anyone.
- [22:56]
John Podhoretz
I think Zoram Dummies. Mamdani's victory has been very clarifying because he is actually the first post Trump, Trumpian politician and that he has clearly made a decision that he is not going to moderate his positions now that he is going into the general election. He is not saying. He is not saying, no, no, I didn't really mean globalize the intifada. He said this weekend that he thinks there shouldn't be billionaires, there shouldn't be any billionaires, that kind of thing. And so he is now, even though he's only running for one office in one city, he is now creating the conditions of disruption in his own party that Trump created in some ways, in 2015, you're gonna be asked, whoever you are, in whatever forum you're in, whether you like this guy and whether you stand with him on some of these views or whether you don't. And that now that all politics is national, you could be a candidate. I know it's 2025, so people aren't running for Senate or House, but you could be a candidate for X, Y or Z. Let's say you're a candidate for governor in Virginia or in New Jersey, and you're going to have to answer for Zoran Mamdani. And that's a pretty interesting thing because, of course, Trump revolutionized his party by shocking everyone with the fact that he didn't do what other politicians had done before him and say, no, no, of course John McCain is a hero. I didn't really mean that. I was joking.
- [24:32]
Christine Rosen
There's a special layer to this if you're a Democrat and it's that you'll be accused of Islamophobia if you criticize Mamdan. That's already happening. You know, certainly they're accusing any critic on the right who's taken him on correctly for saying globalize the intifada. But if you are in an identity politics party, which the Democratic Party still is, this pretense of abandonment of those ide, I think exists at some level, but the base is still rather identity politics oriented. That's. That's a higher risk. It's a different risk than Republicans who were not enthralled with Trump in 2015.
- [25:02]
Matthew Continetti
I have a few things to say about Zoran Mamdani. The first thing is that I've been reminded of this Saul Steinberg cartoon for the past couple days of, you know, how the world ends at the Hudson River. And New York just has this tendency to focus on itself as the center of the universe. And so I feel as though we're, like, overselling the Mamdani phenomenon because New York is the media capital of the world and because the mayor of New York does have a hugely, you know, outsized kind of role in the American political debate. At the same time, New York City does not translate even to state politics in New York. And of course, we found kind of the. The converse is true as well, where Andrew Cuomo, a, you know, compromise governor, former governor, in many ways, he tries to run for the New York Democratic nomination and. And he fails. So as I've said before on the show, it's a terrible. It's terrible the Democrats picked Mamdani as their nominee. It's terrible for the Democratic Party and it's terrible for the Jews. But looking at the coverage over the weekend, I felt like, you know, can I just take a break here?
- [26:25]
John Podhoretz
Because I gotta disagree with you. Because first of all, we have two. We have three different kinds of elections that are affected by Mamdani's success or failure. One is the gubernatorial election in New Jersey, because New Jersey is in the New York City metropolitan media area, and there is going to be a close election in New Jersey. And the candidate, the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey is going to be asked how she feels about how this guy is across the river. Where, you know, where. I don't know. 15% of New Jersey's income involves its involvement in New York City and finance and things like that. And that is bad for her. That's Mikey Sherrill. And there is a generic Republican named Jack Cittarelli who came within three points of winning in 2021 against the sitting governor in a shock election that the polls had him down by 16 and whose name I barely even knew when he got this. I knew. And Noah Rothman, who was on the podcast, hardly even could have told you anything about Jack Cittarelli's positions. And he's in New Jersey from, like, stem to stern. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, you have two other things. The 2026, the 2026 gubernatorial race in New York state and the 2026 congressional races in New York State, which will hold the key to whether or not Republicans hold Congress in November of 2026 and Zoram Hamdani being the mayor of New York. Just as New York's decline was very helpful in 2022 and 2024 to Republicans upstate, this is a golden opportunity for Republicans to hold the House and to win the governorship of New York State.
- [28:28]
Matthew Continetti
So you just, I just, just to finish my point first, you just. Next level of the Saul Steinberg cartoon because you can see New Jersey and the other side of the Hudson river from the cartoon. What I'm talking about beyond that, the rest of the 325 million people in.
- [28:43]
Christine Rosen
The country, I'm going to split the baby because I think you're each, you're talking about slightly different things in the sense that I agree with Matt about like local elections, state elections, and Mamdani being a more of a media focus. But I do think John's concern is correct because if you look at what happened at the Glastonbury Music Festival this past weekend, what Mamdani represents is an attempt to normalize the hatred of the Jews, the hatred of Israel. All kinds of ideas that people wouldn't say publicly, particularly people running for public office. He his just the fact that this weekend on Meet the Press, a national television show, he wouldn't step back from what he had said. He embraced it. That the normalization of those ideas, I think is. Will be a concern whether it becomes an electoral issue. It should be one, in my opinion. But I do think that that normalization he represents a canary in a coal mine for at the political level, where what the squad used to kind of wink at on social media, he's now saying openly. And that is a shift that's happened pretty quickly.
- [29:42]
Matthew Continetti
It would be a disaster for the Democratic Party. He also said on Meet the Press that there should not be billionaires.
- [29:48]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, we should have billionaires.
- [29:52]
Brett Stevens
Can I just say that? I mean, we should be worried about this in. You know, I remember when Trump was running in 2015 and a lot of Democrats were licking their lips and saying, this guy is going to be the most epic disaster ever for the Republican Party. This is a, this is a gift to the opposition. The positions he staked out are so extreme, he's going to divide his own party. There's no way that he could win. It's going to tar and feather the Republican Party. As being, you know, kind of a Carl Palladino type of party forever and ever. And then, lo and behold, the guy wins and becomes a phenomenon of politics for reasons that, you know, go beyond, as John once artfully put it, in a different context. You know, the, the, the, the, the ability of. What did you say? You said he, he speaks in frequencies that, you know, most American pundits can't hear and that, who knows? I don't think that's the case, but it should, his, his ascent, and I understand it was 400 odd thousand voters in progressive districts of New York, but his ascent is a really, really worrying sign of what the Democratic Party might yet become because, you know, maybe he's at an extreme fringe of Democrats right now when it comes to Israel in the Middle East. Not that extreme, given the way you see the Democratic Party increasingly turning into an openly anti Israel party and an anti Israel party is going to turn into an openly anti Semitic party. So I worry a great deal about what he means and I worry that he is, he is going to be a kind of a replica of Trump and what he meant for the Republican Party in ways that are profoundly frightening. I hope I'm wrong, but that's, that's in the back of my mind.
- [32:01]
John Podhoretz
I don't think that he is a revolutionary candidate. I think he's an evolutionary candidate because, and now I've lost, said there shouldn't be billionaires. That is a kind of evolution from 2019, when Elizabeth Warren kind of said the same thing but didn't actually get there in saying it. You know, essentially that there are people who make too much money and the money should be taken away. She and Sanders, but Warren specifically. So I do think that there is a world in which, you know, Warren represented the sort of like broke through the mold and Sanders bringing sort of socialism back as a, as a centralized feature of potential of Democratic politics. And he will now be the most successful exponent of that should he win in a electorate of eight and a half million people, which, you know, which is like the size of a small to medium state, I guess. Like Michigan is 11 million people. So this is like 8 million people.
- [33:17]
Matthew Continetti
So moving on to some of the other things I was saying, I wanted to say that I think that it's getting undue attention in the, in the sense of the takes that are being written about it. And here are just two takes from yesterday's New York Times. The first headline, have Millennials Finally Figured out how to Topple Boomer Bosses? Now as a, as a Older millennial and an edge millennial, one of the first millennials who has been trying to figure out how to topple my boomer bosses. This article was of immense interest to.
- [33:50]
John Podhoretz
Me, but you ain't toppling me.
- [33:53]
Matthew Continetti
You know, we already discussed you're not the king. You're not the neocon king.
- [33:57]
Christine Rosen
And the 2gen Xers resignation nonetheless.
- [34:01]
John Podhoretz
Non it.
- [34:02]
Matthew Continetti
The parallel is ridiculous.
- [34:04]
John Podhoretz
What?
- [34:05]
Matthew Continetti
You're going to have a primary in the workplace. And maybe this is the way that the millennials can overthrow their managers at coffee shops, because that seems to be the way. The base of Mamdani's movement is what people have described as the barista proletariat. You know, people who have college degrees and yet are kind of in these entry level service jobs and have great resentment for people who have seemed to have broken through and achieved more status and wealth with a similar level of education. But it's not translatable. It's a very peculiar case that happened here in the mayoral primary in New York City. And the second take that made me spit out my coffee reading the New York Times yesterday was the headline plenty of Jews Love Zoran Mamdani by columnist Michelle Goldberg. And what I especially loved about this column was that the proof that plenty of Jews love Zoran Mandani is that one, Brad Lander Cross endorsed Mamdani. Two, Mamdani won most of Park Slope, which, you know, really, that's, you know, that's the core.
- [35:26]
John Podhoretz
That's the core of American. I'm not going to make Brett talk about his colleague Michelle Goldberg. I will just tell a quick story that I was on a panel with Michelle Goldberg at the Columbia journalism school in 2016 on the issue of Israel and Israel coverage. And she was a virile and filthy, disgusting anti Zionist then. And to have her talk about how Jews feel about anything when, you know, 80% or 85% of Jews define themselves as Zionist is an act of chutzpah that I would expect from somebody who has spent the last 20 years of her life getting her hair cut in the style of Louise Brooks and writing in the fashion of, you know, I don't know, Rosa Luxembourg. It's ridiculous. That piece was astounding. Brad Lander, as you mentioned, the person that Cross endorsed is effectively an anti Zionist Jew himself. So, yeah, plenty of Jews. First of all, it's not plenty of Jews. And I've said this now for three days on the show, and I want to say it again. Most Jews in New York in this Democratic primary did not vote For Zoramdani, he got at most 20% and maybe less, we don't really know. But every Jewish precinct in the city where there were more, that's more than 15% Jewish, voted against Mamdani. And in most of them by double or, you know, by double digits. Uncomfortable double digits, with the weird exception of Crown Heights, which is, which is where, which is where the Hasidim, which is the headquarters of Lubavitch Hasidim. But otherwise there are like 16 neighborhoods in New York City that are more than 12 or 15% Jewish. And they all went for Cuomo. So, so much for the Jews liking. Plenty of Jews do like Zorahamdami and they subscribe to Jewish Currents and they cover up. They, they saluted Darfur, didn't talk about the second intifada, but we're very concerned about the war on Darfur in the early 2000s and have done things like refused to say the prayer for the state of Israel once Bibi Netanyahu got elected. Those are the Jews that she's talking about. They are turncoats. They are betrayers of their own people. And if she speaks for them, it's like Josephus speaking for the Jews of Rome, you know, Jews of Jerusalem, when he's already gone over to the Roman side.
- [38:01]
Christine Rosen
But, you know, but one point, though, that I think Matt raises in that interview that is important is the no billionaires point, because that's not a toss away line that speaks directly to very young, young Democrats who are actually cynical about both political parties and see in Democratic socialism some new exciting thing that they can embrace to solve the problem of why they don't feel like they're getting ahead economically, culturally, socially. And that is a very appealing message to that group. Whether they'll turn out and vote in elections is another issue. But how that will transform the party and long term is an important point. That is a signal that is. That's a dog whistle to a lot of people who don't really read or understand the history of socialism and the history of communism of the 20th century. They are creatures of the 21st century and they're not happy with their economic.
- [38:50]
Abe Greenwald
I'm with Brett here entirely. I think it's a big national, potentially big national problem to worry about here, in part because of what we were talking about at the start of the podcast, which is that Democrats otherwise have been ineffective and don't know how to break through. And they look at Mamdani and think, this is something dazzling. This is a model. And nationally, the Democratic establishment is fairly sclerotic. And they try, you know, if you, they try to be revolutionary. You know, if you look at all the, all the stunts and the asking to get arrested and the rest of it. But he's out there sort of taking a much more direct line and getting the kind of attention that they all would absolutely adore.
- [39:47]
Matthew Continetti
This is the third. This leads me to my third stupid Mamdani take over the weekend, which is that you can have the pizzazz without the noxious ideology. And I don't think you can. I heard over the weekend say someone saying, well, Democrats should just copy everything that he did tactically, but without the socialism. But I don't think that's reflective of where the younger base in the cities of the Democratic Party is. I mean, if Chuck Schumer just started doing a lot of short form videos and eating rice with his fingers, I don't think it would add to his popularity at all. Right.
- [40:26]
Christine Rosen
Because he looks like to see that. By the way, no one wants to see that.
- [40:30]
John Podhoretz
The worst part about Mandani, which gets to Abe's and Brett's point, is that the anti Zionism and the anti Semitism are a feature. They are not a bug. They are going to say that. Yeah, go ahead.
- [40:41]
Abe Greenwald
No, no, no, you said it. I was going to say, as John says, it's a feature, not a bug. I agree. Yeah, go ahead.
- [40:46]
John Podhoretz
I mean, where do you think he got his out of state money from? You think got his out of state money because he was talking about the affordability problem of rents in New. He raised like 8 million. He had 5,000 out of state donors at a mayoral race in New York raising millions of dollars, by the way. He got them from care. This is a guy who did a rap number when he like 10 years ago praising the Holy Land Foundation, a group that was closed down and shuttered under a judge's orders because it was providing material support to terrorist groups in the Middle East. The Holy Land foundation of Richardson, Texas.
- [41:26]
Abe Greenwald
Just to build on Brett's point, the noxiousness of Trump when he first appeared was a feature, not a bug in the same way. And it wasn't. It was the, it was, you know, like, it wasn't like, oh, this poison is going to. Everyone's going to reject it. No Havlas espanol spries.
- [41:47]
John Podhoretz
If you used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quick about the things you actually talk about in the real world with lessons, handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers. Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com Spotify spelled B A B-B B E L.com Spotify rules and restrictions may apply. Hi everyone, I'm Matt Ebert, CEO and founder of Crash Champions. Welcome to Pod Crash. On Pod Crash, we'll dive deep with industry leaders and game changers because we want to uncover their secrets to success. We're going to explore everything from building trust, building a rock solid team to champion blue collar work. And we also want to talk about creating explosive growth in your business. You'll hear actionable advice, real leadership and business lessons along with what's worked for these incredible people throughout their career. We're even going to go in depth into what I call a Champions mindset. This is the very philosophy that I use to champion people and take Crash champions from a single shop to over 650 locations today. And now I want to share that information with you. Watch or listen to pod crash on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That's what we thought and we were wrong. That's why I say I think he is the first genuinely post Trump politician on the Democratic side that he has learned some weird set of lessons that you don't. You don't back off the positions that you took. You don't, you know, you dance with the rung, the one that brung you. And the real question now is can somehow he be stopped by this desperately stupid mayor who, you know, took bribes from Turkey in the form of flight upgrades or by the 1980s New York City hero who lives with 20 cats or by the disgraced mayor whom he humiliated in the race last week. Those are the three possible alternatives. And the fact that they all three, or at least two of them are likely to be in the race means that they will divide. They will divide the anti Mamdani vote and he will come up the center and win. And then we're in a new political reality in which as I, that's why I think I'm glad that Christine brought up the Glastonbury music festival starting thousands of people chanting death to the idf. On, on England's green. In England's green and pleasant, you know, land. That is, that is a view of the, that is a vision of the future. That could happen at Coachella. That could happen.
- [44:41]
Brett Stevens
It has in Fact happened. I was going to say you're not, you're not paying enough attention to music festivals, John.
- [44:47]
Christine Rosen
Yes, it did. Yeah.
- [44:48]
Brett Stevens
You're showing your boomer, your boomerness.
- [44:51]
John Podhoretz
I'm so old. I'm so. Well, I think there are a lot of boomers at Coachella, but thank you. Thank you for. Okay, so, I mean, Coachella, the lead.
- [44:59]
Brett Stevens
On simply that you're going to have whatever his fortunes are in New York City. You're going to have Mamdani copycats all over the United States in every kind of race that you can imagine, and some number of them are going to win. And his success creates both permission and inspiration to younger Democrats in particular, everywhere to, to kind of pursue copycat politics, not just in terms of his electoral strategies, but in terms of his, of his ideology. This is, this is a reality of the Democratic Party that I've been warning about for 10 years, which is, which is the drift to an increasingly harder line, anti Zionist, anti Semitic position. And there is no, there are very few figures or there are dwindling number of figures in the Democratic Party. We're going to be able to effectively stand up to it. Now, whether that means poison for Democrats, it hinges entirely on whether the Trump presidency succeeds, which is, you know, which is an open question. I mean, if, if in three years time we are approaching the 2028 election and the economy is healthy, and then, then you can see whoever succeeds Trump destroying the Democrats the way George H.W. bush destroyed the Dukakis back in 1988. But if we're in the midst of a steep recession, then Mamdaniism, if that's, if that's the term for it, could, could make extraordinary inroads in the country. But it's a really, I mean, I find it some of the most depressing news I've seen in the United States, like, ever, that this guy has succeeded this much.
- [46:58]
John Podhoretz
Okay, so let's move on to the Middle East. Brett. Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that he wants a ceasefire in Gaza. And there has been this. The news or the chatter in the Israeli press is that Bibi Netanyahu went to his, the judges who were hearing his case and said, you got to give me at least a week off because there's a lot of stuff happening and I got to focus on it relating to the hostages and relating to Gaza, and the judges gave him the week off from his ridiculous trial. And there is this chatter that something is up, that Bibi is on the verge or they're on the verge with Negotiations of making some kind of a deal in which the Gaza war is brought to an end, what the terms of that deal are. This is where we get into the More another Seinfeld reference or the yada yada yada, which is like, so yada yada yada, the hostages come home, the Hamas is no longer in power in Gaza and the war ends. But what the yada yada is, nobody has the foggiest idea. But there is a, there are, there have been Poland, there's been polling in the last three or four days indicating that now a plurality of members of Likud on the right are done with the war. They've had it. And particularly maybe the success in Iran. You crush the Iranian nuclear program, you humiliate Iran, you cut off its defenses and things like that. And you basically say, well, Hamas has lost its patron, Hezbollah no longer has, is no longer listening to its Patreon patron. We don't feel a threat from the air, from, from missiles, from the air, from Gaza and we can probably keep them out as, as we didn't in 2023. So let's just be done with this.
- [49:08]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, I mean what I've heard is potential peace deals with Syria, with Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, which was about to sign a peace agreement back in 2023 when, when October 7th happened. And then of course with, with Saudi Arabia. It's a deal that's for many, many reasons, exceptionally tempting to accept. First, because Israel has effectively won the war in a resounding way against its real enemy, which was the so called axis of resistance, of which Hamas was only a member, but not the, not the leading member. Secondly, because the prize of those kinds of diplomatic normalizations is considerable, exceptionally important for Israel, not most of all Saudi Arabia. Third, because I think Israelis are exhausted after nearly two straight years of war and so there's a diplomatic consensus gelling around it. Fourth, and I don't mean to put them in fourth place, but fourth, the health of the remaining hostages is, is very much in question. And fifth, I don't think Israel now wants to get into the business of going on year after year after year, losing one soldier, two soldiers, three soldiers a day until it becomes what seems like a victory now starts to feel like a defeat in a year or so. So those are powerful reasons to see if Israel can, if, if Israel and Hamas can accept the so called Witkoff parameters and see where it goes from there. A large question that we should address, maybe not this podcast, but Israel should be thinking about is what happens with the Philadelphia corridor, the strip of land between separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt? Because if Israelis relinquish that, then there is unquestionably the real risk that Hamas is a reconstituted force in five or 10 years and you have to play this scenario all over again. So the devil proverbially is in the details. And that's the detail that is the most devilish.
- [51:40]
John Podhoretz
It strikes me that if the Israeli public is not reckoning with the fact that the idea is let's just get the hostages home, as though, as though that everybody doesn't want the hostages home and Bibi doesn't want the hostages home and the hostages should get home. The likeliest scenario is that some of them are gotten out in the course of a negotiation that involves releasing political, classic things, releasing political prisoners, blah, blah, blah, blah, some kind of payments that we never see that go to somebody, Bakshish, all of that, but that they're not all coming home. And then the question is, have, have Israelis now defined this war so narrowly that if every single living hostage isn't brought home that the war will be seen as a failure? I think this is complicated by the fact that, that the Iran and Hezbollah missions were so startlingly successful despite the continued bizarre poo poohing of the, of the mission, the American bombing and Israeli mission there. That, that it's made a huge, I think it's made a huge difference in terms of the Israeli national spirit and character. Like we won two wars actually in the course of trying to win the war that this started. We've actually won two other wars. Matt, you have any.
- [53:12]
Matthew Continetti
I think it's a very murky area we've entered into now. I mean, the most remarkable thing to me has been Trump's intervention in the Netanyahu trial. He's been posting regularly about how the trial is a sham. It's a deep state, the Israeli deep state at work, and that the very least the testimony should be delayed, which it has been, and maximally the charges should be dropped. To me, this just reinforces what I've been thinking of as the real two state solution to the Middle East's problems, and that is the two states of the United States and Israel working together. And an under remarked, but nonetheless incredible fact of the past two weeks has been that the American President and the Israeli Prime Minister have worked hand in hand on a, on a joint military operation against Iran, which poses an existential threat to Israel and a longer term threat to the United States, and in doing so has reshuffled the deck, creating the conditions for potential peace agreements with, with Syria, with Lebanon, with Indonesia, like Brett said, and a potential breakthrough in Gaza. And then the other thought I had is the, the Palestinians in Gaza are, it seems to me, different than most of the other populations in, in the region in that they there the support for Hamas there. Hamas has changed that culture so radically that after years now of devastation, after having the upper echelon of Hamas completely destroyed, after having now a change in strategy where the Gaza Humanitarian foundation is providing aid directly to parts of the, the Strip, and you have now the beginnings of internal resistance against Hamas and other parts of the Strips, these tribal leaders or gangs, you still do not have a demand from the Palestinians in Gaza to end the war and to exile the Hamas leadership. It's still a sense of victimhood, of we're simply pawns and a relentless propaganda campaign against the State of Israel. This is what makes this war in Gaza so difficult, is that you don't have the population amenable to any reasonable solutions. Moreover, Israel has been feeding the population that still won't, that still won't turn against its evil rulers.
- [56:10]
Abe Greenwald
What really makes the war so difficult in Gaza is the hostages. I mean that's the thing. And you know, just from my perspective, for what it's worth, I of course have so much respect and empathy for the opinion of those Israelis who feel we just want the hostages home and we got to end this war. It's been almost two years of a war that has completely deformed and distorted the country, our day to day life. And of course I get that I may be one of them if I were there, I don't know from here, my perspective is for Israel to have come this far, to have defeated so many of their enemies so impressively and establish deterrence on so many fronts over such a long period, and to leave some remnant of Hamas who initiated this war in the first place, still it's still standing is I can't stomach the idea of that.
- [57:27]
John Podhoretz
I mean, I guess the central problem is that the war ended up having two solutions, potential solutions, right? One is that Hamas is defeated and removed and taken out of power. And the other is that the hostages are returned home safely or to the extent possible. And when you have those two and they're actually in contradiction with each other, if you can somehow solve one, you can claim partial, at least partial victory. The other victory I guess you could claim as Israel under those circumstances in which Hamas is invisibly seen to be exiled like Yasser Arafat was exiled from Lebanon at the end of the Lebanon War in 1982 and flown to Tunisia along with his, you know, senior aides of the PLO who were exiled from, From Lebanon. That, that you say they're just, they're no longer a threat. They have no, they have no missile launchers left. They have no, they, you know, they have no headquarters left. We've been blowing up the tunnels. We, you know, the deterrence has been restored. Deterrence has been restored. The removal of Hamas did not happen, but deterrence has been restored. It's not thrilling, but again, in a world in which Iran's, you know, nuclear program has, Yes, I believe it has been taken out. Can it. By the way, the joke here is can it be reconstituted? Of course, anything can be. You know, you could blow up something and then rebuild it, you know, of course. I mean, it's not like you can. The only, Literally, the only way that you could eliminate Iran's nuclear program would be a regime change and then putting in an American, you know, putting MacArthur in to run Iran forever so that they couldn't rebuild the nuclear program. I mean, theory.
- [59:27]
Christine Rosen
But to Matt's point, though, the people of Gaza have to have a reason to also get rid of this ideological posture that they have lived in for generations. And even if you say that, if you. From a very practical political standpoint, what you've just said about Israel's attitude towards Hamas, I can. That makes sense. But there. But it doesn't take very much for an, for, for an eliminationist ideology such as the one that fuels Hamas, to stay alive in a small group of people and to nurture that. It can be nurtured. It can be grown. It can receive other foreign support from, if not Iran, someone else. There are plenty of people on this globe who want to eliminate Israel. And I worry that that's where the. It's not necessarily rebuilding effort, but there has to be some effort on the part of Israel, the United States, to say, here's how we fix that problem as well. Not hearts and minds. I know we're not rebuilding Gaza in that way, but some alternative, some alternative that. That allows for the younger generations of people in that region to have something else to choose.
- [60:28]
Matthew Continetti
I just have one suggestion on that score, which is under no conditions can the UN be allowed back into the exact.
- [60:34]
Christine Rosen
Well, that's a perfect. That's a perfect.
- [60:37]
Matthew Continetti
However, this, however, this kind of ends whatever kind of a stalemate or whatever, the UN and UNRA cannot be allowed back in the Gaza Strip.
- [60:46]
Brett Stevens
My own suggestion, given how outspoken they've been is I would like to see policemen and military forces from Norway, Ireland and Spain and any other European country. French would be excellent here. Any other European country that wants to recognize Palestinian, Palestinian statehood and cares for the suffering people of Gaza that they should send their security forces to, to the Gaza Strip to handle, handle things there. I think that they're entitled to do that. I'd love to see them there. I really would love to see the young idealists of Ireland and Spain in Rafah and Gaza City. They should be there right away.
- [61:40]
John Podhoretz
Well, you know, we love science fiction here on the Commentary magazine podcast as Matt and Christine often recommend works of science fiction. One of the many works of science fiction that Christine has just recommended is a change in the Palestinian culture such that it would no longer be, it would no longer be poisoned by this eliminationist philosophy that has done nothing but immiserate and destroy civic culture both on the west bank and in Gaza now for decades. Sadly, I think that that hope is illusory.
- [62:14]
Matthew Continetti
It's true. But there's a difference between changing the culture, which is next to impossible, and having Gaza be closer to the west bank, which still had, you know, in its kind of governance and you know, tenor, I'd say. I mean which clearly Abbas is corrupt, the Palestinian Authority is corrupt. There's Hamas in the West Bank. The IDF is continuing counterterrorism operations in the west bank, eliminating terrorists just over the weekend, by the way, in the West Bank. Nonetheless, Israel is able to have some insight into that security situation and is able to go in and have it greater intelligence than it ever than it ever did in the Gaza.
- [62:57]
John Podhoretz
But there are two reasons for that. Number one, and maybe this speaks to optimism. It crushed Palestinian hopes on the west bank by winning the second intifada. And you could say that that may have happened in Gaza, that, that, that the idea of re engaging with Israel in either terrorist or, you know, militia versions or is just will be too terrifying to them after the last two years. And so you have that negative example problem is that Israel disengaged with Gaza and no longer has Israelis on the, in the territories. The territories have to be defended by the IDF because there are I don't know how many hundred there's, I don't know was 125,000 people or is it more? I can't even remember. It depends on how you, what you calculate as being part of the west bank, whether you consider the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Gilo and others part of the West Bank. Or not, which I really don't. But anyway, there are Israelis that need to be protected on the west bank. So Israel can't disengage. Like it couldn't say, okay, it's all you go, you do you and be like that. So, you know, one thing to do is rebuild the three Gaza settlements so that the Israel. So the IDF has a reason to be there. But that's of course also science fictional.
- [64:20]
Matthew Continetti
But I think the IDF has a reason to be there, which is to prevent another October 7th.
- [64:24]
John Podhoretz
Right? Yes. And I think with that, and Brett's dog agrees with me, I think we, I think we have come to the. To the end of today's podcast. So, Brett Stevens, nice to see you. Of course, Always thrilling to talk to you. Sorry for.
- [64:40]
Brett Stevens
I hope the connectivity issues were on someone else's end.
- [64:43]
John Podhoretz
But, you know, we deal with this every day. You know, it's life and nothing works, you know. So on the one hand, this is a miracle that we can even do this. Five of us in five different places through one computer program. Talking to America. That's kind of an amazing thing.
- [65:00]
Matthew Continetti
Mamdani isn't even married yet and he's screwing up the commentary podcast.
- [65:05]
John Podhoretz
There you go.
- [65:06]
Brett Stevens
All right.
- [65:06]
John Podhoretz
Well, you know, there shouldn't. Yes. There shouldn't be billionaires. So. Brett, you're not allowed to exist anymore. Okay. Anyway, we will. Don't close your program yet, Brett. So for Brett, for. Thank you, Brett, for Matt, Christine and Abe, I'm John Pod Horiz. Keep the cand.