Minnesota Vice

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast — "Minnesota Vice"

Date: January 5, 2026
Episode Overview:
This episode dives into two timely, complex stories: the fallout from U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the massive, years-long public fraud scandal that toppled Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The hosts debate the competence and motives of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, the role of media in state-level corruption, and what the Minnesota case signals for 2028 presidential politics and progressive governance. The episode closes with discussion of New York’s new mayor and the open embrace of left collectivist politics, with sharp commentary on the implications for cities and political culture.

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Hosts and Contributors

• John Podhoretz (moderator)
• Seth Mandel (senior editor)
• Christine Rosen (social commentary columnist)
• Eliana Johnson (Washington Free Beacon editor)
• BJ Novak (frequent guest)

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1. Venezuela After the Coup: U.S. Policy and the Trump Doctrine

Timestamps: 01:19–18:38

Key Discussion Points:

• Unfolding Complexity in Venezuela:
  The hosts dissect the confused aftermath of the U.S.-backed removal of Nicolás Maduro. They note significant behind-the-scenes planning regarding the transition, aiming to avoid chaos like in post-invasion Iraq. John Podhoretz asks if the confusion is “more substantive than we might be giving it credit for,” stressing that “there are a lot of moving pieces here” (03:16).

• U.S. Approach vs. Past Interventions:

  • Seth Mandel contrasts the Trump administration’s motives with previous Cold War ideas:

    “It’s as if we prosecuted the Cold War with spheres of influence… very offensive-minded, but not ideologically minded. They’re not, you know, this is a fight for liberty and freedom.” (04:43)

  • Eliana Johnson frames the intervention as “gunboat diplomacy,” emphasizing the U.S. isn’t prepared for what comes after a quick strike:

    “You can’t just hang out on your boat and assume the Machiavellian number two… is going to serve U.S. interests.” (10:33)

• Succession Drama and U.S. Messaging:

  • Discussion around Maduro’s vice president, Delsey Rodriguez, as possible U.S. partner in stabilizing Venezuela, despite mixed public statements by Trump (06:39–07:57).
  • Internal debate over whether the administration really knows who or what follows Maduro, with Seth doubting any long-term planning:

    “I just don’t think… they could really know what Maduro’s number two and the rest… were really planning for this.” (17:25)

• Competing Motives: Oil, Drugs, or Democracy?
  Eliana Johnson observes:

  “The only consistent thing we’ve heard so far is about drugs and oil.”

  • She challenges the lack of clarity and transparency and warns of political risk if the story turns into a messy occupation (12:01).

• Historical Parallels:

  • The group cites the Bush administration’s missteps in Iraq, with John noting:

    “I think they are trying very hard not to duplicate that situation. So they’re trying to be fleet on the ground… not announce grandly that a new day has dawned.” (08:00)

  • Reference to a possible rumor of Stephen Miller getting a Venezuela portfolio, dismissed as outside his expertise (15:10).

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2. Minnesota’s Scandal: Fraud, Media, and the Fall of Governor Tim Walz

Timestamps: 18:38–32:48

Key Discussion Points:

• Governor Tim Walz Announces He’s Not Running:

  • Breaking news mid-show as Walz stands down, largely due to exposure of massive fraud in state welfare programs—particularly, as BJ Novak clarifies, not just daycare but the “waivered Medicare programs” and “the largest fraud... was the Feeding Our Future fraud on a COVID-era program feeding kids.” (21:15)
  • Local coverage by Scott Johnson of Power Line blog receives strong praise for years of dogged reporting (19:48).

• Role of Alternative Media:

  • Two viral stories, by City Journal and YouTuber Nick Shirley, pushed the fraud national after mainstream outlets failed, leading to mounting pressure and national attention (22:23).
  • Novak notes:

    “These guys… did the job that the national media did in holding Tim Walz to account.” (23:24)

• Mainstream Media Reaction:

  • Eliana Johnson criticizes the media tendency to “attack the messenger” rather than investigate substantiated claims of fraud (24:02).
  • BJ Novak satirizes their downplaying:

    “Only 40% was fraud, like we’re supposed to feel good about that.” (24:15)

• Larger Lesson and Need for Investigative Accountability:

  • Christine Rosen underscores that state-level fraud is rampant and bipartisan, expressing hope for a “belated investigation at every state by responsible journalists” (25:27).

• Prosecutorial Response:

  • Novak details how the U.S. Attorney’s office is overwhelmed and calls for more prosecutors:

    “Send more prosecutors to tackle the fraud in Minnesota… the answer is send more prosecutors to the U.S. Attorney’s office to beef up the fraud team.” (26:27)

• Political Implications for 2028:

  • Walz’s collapse impacts Kamala Harris (whose vetting process is now under scrutiny) and highlights risks for other Democrats amid waves of blue-state corruption (21:08, 30:45).
  • Eliana warns California's numerous nonprofits could be a “huge target for state-level fraud” (31:50).

Notable Quotes:

• BJ Novak:

  “Mainstream media attacking the messenger, not the message. That’s all they’ve been doing.” (24:12)

• Eliana Johnson:

  “This is not just a financial scandal. This is a moral and spiritual scandal for a nation…” (36:35)

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3. COVID Relief, Institutional Corruption, and the Moral Crisis

Timestamps: 35:54–44:26

Key Discussion Points:

• COVID Spending as Precedent:

  • Hosts draw parallels between COVID-era spending and ongoing fraud, warning that similar “industrial scale” corruption and waste occurred nationally.
  • Seth Mandel cites a Wall Street Journal study finding the $200 billion in school aid to be ineffective:

    “Its effects were basically nil… the taxpayers end up not just in addition to their children being left behind, they are also $200 billion poorer.” (41:35)

• Systemic Loss of Institutional Trust:

  • John Podhoretz describes the “phalanx” protecting official COVID policy as in part defending huge financial interests and reflecting deeper institutional decay (37:30).
  • Christine Rosen calls the situation “a moral and spiritual crisis, not just a financial one” (36:35).

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4. NYC’s New Mayor: The Warmth of Collectivism (Zoram Mamdani’s Inauguration)

Timestamps: 44:26–63:36

Key Discussion Points:

• Welcome to Openly Radical Governance:

  • The new New York City mayor, Zoram Mamdani, is discussed as an unabashed collectivist.
  • John sums up:

    “He basically brought to life…the entire philosophy of the villain structure in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. He wants…government structures on free enterprise in the name of collectivism.” (46:44)

  • Seth Mandel cites direct inaugural language:

    “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” (46:44)

• No Euphemisms, No Rebranding:

  • BJ Novak underscores Mamdani’s break with past Democratic leaders:

    “‘To those who insist the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this. No longer will city hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.’… a shot across the bow of Bill Clinton and Clintonism.” (49:01)

• Aggressive Policy Agenda and Antisemitism:

  • Eliana Johnson walks through Mamdani’s immediate reversal of pro-Israel policies, rescinding antisemitism definitions and executive orders:

    “His goal is actually to rescind protections of Jews in New York, to…bring back BDS in New York City.” (52:02–52:36)

  • John:

    "This is why he wants the job. He doesn’t want the job because he likes government. He is a revolutionary, and he is a serious revolutionary.” (54:32)

• Skepticism about Efficacy and Political Response:

  • The hosts debate whether New York’s entrenched bureaucracy, private sector, and old-school Democrats can moderate or subvert the new administration’s more radical ambitions (56:39).

• Consequences for American Urban Politics:

  • John predicts swift political tests:

    “Snowstorms, a kid…dies of abuse…a policeman forced to use his gun…all of this is going to happen… How he responds… is going to be an important tell.” (59:54)

  • Seth Mandel notes the significance of Mamdani’s explicit promises:

    “The lack of euphemism means you’re not going to be able to say ‘real socialism has never been tried’… If collectivism doesn’t work, collectivism has failed, in the mayor’s own words.” (63:17)

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5. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Venezuela:
  • John Podhoretz:

    “Given the meticulous nature of the military planning, I kind of doubt that it’s as haphazard on this other side.” (03:44)

• On the Minnesota Fraud Media Coverage:
  • BJ Novak:

    “These guys, imperfect as they are, did the job that the national media did in holding Tim Walz to account and bringing this issue to national attention.” (23:24)

  • Eliana Johnson:

    “People should start to look into their own state and local government fraud. This kind of fraud is rampant.” (25:27)

• On Collectivism in NYC:
  • Seth Mandel:

    “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” (46:44, quoting Mamdani)

  • John Podhoretz:

    “He is a revolutionary, and he is a serious revolutionary. And he wishes to impose measures from above…” (54:32)

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6. Closing Recommendation

Film: Marty Supreme

• John Podhoretz passionately plugs the new film Marty Supreme, calling it,

  “…one of the most sheerly entertaining movies I’ve seen in years and one of the most brilliantly acted movies… Timothée Chalamet… is kinetic. It moves like a freight train.” (63:40–End)

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Summary:
This was a rich, fast-moving episode with sharp analysis and original reporting. The panel dissected Venezuela’s delicate transition post-coup and the Trump team's ambiguous motives, explored how a relentless local blog toppled MN’s governor amid staggering fraud, and previewed the 2028 political fallout. The group also sounded the alarm about the rise of unvarnished collectivism in New York politics, warning of real-world implications when radical ideology meets urban governance. Throughout, they posed vital questions about the relationship between government, media, and public trust, all while keeping the tone conversational and unsparing.

Transcript

[James Patterson]

I'm James Patterson. I write way too many books. Welcome to Hungry Dogs. The title comes from my maternal grandmother, Isabel Zelvis Morris. Nan used to always say, hungry dogs run faster, James. And I've been running fast ever since. Here's what will be coming your way soon, and this is a really terrific list. I think you'll hear from some incredible people like Stacey Abrams. Yay. BJ Novak.

[BJ Novak]

Yay.

[James Patterson]

Kathy Bates. Dolly Parton. Josh Gad. And Pope Leo. Okay, maybe not Pope Leo, but who knows? Maybe he'll show up. Hungry dogs run faster. Thank you, Grandma, for turning me into a hopeless, obsessive, compulsive. Listen to Hungry Dogs with James Patterson. That'd be me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[BJ Novak]

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

[James Patterson]

Some preacher pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the.

[John Pooretz]

Worst of God welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast Today. Today is Monday, January 5, 2026. It's 2026 and we are back with our daily schedule. And by we, I mean senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[John Pooretz]

Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Eliana Johnson]

Hi, John.

[John Pooretz]

And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[BJ Novak]

Hi, John.

[John Pooretz]

Abe is on jury duty today. I think he's going to be back tomorrow. We did do an emergency podcast over the weekend to deal with the news on Venezuela, which I listened to last night on a long car drive and I think holds up today. So I don't want to go back and go over what happened. If you really want to know what we thought in the immediate aftermath, you can listen to the emergency pod which should be in your feedback. Clearly we have a confused and confusing situation. And I don't think that the confusion I'm guessing there is more substance to the confusion than we might be giving it credit for being, which is to say that there are a lot of moving pieces here. There seem to be a lot of moving pieces in the question of how we were going to deal with a successor government or regime in Venezuela that were not ill considered and that at the very least we were not going to be in a situation where we decapitated a regime and left the country with no functioning anything, so that there might be some continuity of government in some form, so that the garbage men would go and pick up the garbage today, which they might not otherwise, and that other things are happening. Given the nature of the incredibly meticulous nature of the military planning, I kind of Doubt that it's as haphazard on this other side. They had months to think about these questions, just as the military had months to think about these questions in planning the event. Or am I being too Pollyanna ish about this?

[Seth Mandel]

I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that jumps out at me about all this is that it feels like. And obviously I don't think Trump thinks these things through as in, as complex a banner as this. But if you look at this, it kind of looks like a mirror image of prosecuting the Cold War through not a, you know, liberty and ideological lens, but through pure power politics. It's like, you know, Russia kind of gets its sphere of influence, but it doesn't get to be in Venezuela and we're going to do literally anything under the sun to stop them. And the Iranians, we're going to bomb Iran. Iran doesn't get to have a bomb. It doesn't get to try to kill the American president twice and fail and live to try a third time or whatever. All these things, you know, are very, very offensive minded, but they're not, like, ideologically minded. They're not, you know, this is a fight for, you know, liberty and freedom. It's right. It's, it's as if we prosecuted the Cold War with spheres of influence in.

[John Pooretz]

Right.

[Seth Mandel]

But I'm not sure how far it goes in terms of whether he cares what happens next in Venezuela.

[John Pooretz]

Okay. I'm just saying you're going very big picture, and I'm trying to go small bore in this one sense, which is what's going to happen this week. Everybody seems to be very mystified by the, understandably, by the sort of criticism of opposition leader Machado, who herself is not advocating that she become the president. She did not run for the presidency. She was forbidden to by law. So another guy, I mean, it's like his name is either Gonzalez or Ramirez.

[BJ Novak]

Or Rodriguez, and I can't remember Edmundo Gonzalez.

[John Pooretz]

I got it. I got it with one of the three.

[Seth Mandel]

Okay, so I believe it's Vladimir Guerrero.

[John Pooretz]

Jr. What appears. Jr. Yes.

[BJ Novak]

What appears to me to have happened and to be happening and is as follows. I'm not sure I'm right about this, so please jump in if you guys have a different understanding and putting all the different news accounts together. It seems to me that there was outreach before this military operation happened, from American officials to Maduro's number two, Delsey Rodriguez, and that she gave indications that she was willing to take power and serve as some kind of stabilizing force afterwards that those conversations appear to be continuing and she seems to be talking tough to the domestic population but offering reassuring signals to American officials.

[John Pooretz]

So you're saying that she's saying one thing in Spanish and another thing in English.

[BJ Novak]

Exactly. Okay. And being, you know, pliant, compliant, whatever, telling Rubio, hegseth, the CIA that she will serve as a stabilizing force until elections can be held. Something like that. Now what I can't square with this is the President's comment during the press conference when he was asked who would run Venezuela, indicating he said something to the effect of what? Well, she's his number two. And that wouldn't be very good, would it? Like, would that stop the drugs? Would that stop the migration problem? That doesn't seem like a very good solution to me. And it seems unlikely to me that Trump wouldn't have known if these conversations were happening beforehand what was going on. And so that's what I'm trying to square. Of course, like Trump is capable of saying things off the cuff that don't square with administration policy, but it does seem like the administration is working with the number two. And it's not like Marco Rubio is going to run Venezuela.

[John Pooretz]

I don't. Christine, what I'm thinking about when Seth started talking was when we invaded Iraq and when we decapitated the regime in Iraq, there was a set of ideas about what was going to happen after, number one, George W. Bush's main concern was that there would be a huge famine. And so, you know, I mentioned him and we'll talk about him again. My brother in law, Elliot Abrams, who was the senior coordinator for the Middle east on the Bush National Security Council, was told directly by Bush, no famine, your job is to ensure food supply. And the Pentagon had this idea that there would be these, this loya jirga, there would be sort of domestic councils would come and meet and they would sort of appoint a new leader, maybe an exile leader and all of that. And that plan went totally sideways. The, the, the leaders that we were talking to outside had no contact or no standing inside the country. The loya jirga was a failure. We needed to set up essentially a kind of imperial conservatorship a month after Iraq. And I think they are trying very hard not to duplicate that situation. So they're trying to be fleet on the ground. They have clearly they have some contact and have had some contact. And maybe she's the one who put the finger on where Maduro was with the Vice president and they are letting her have her head. They're not yelling at her for saying, bring him back. And the arrest was illegal. So that there were modalities in place to make sure that the country itself did not descend into total anarchy and chaos, that there was, as I say, continuity of government and that they probably have plans, but that they want to see how things unfold hour by hour and not come announce grandly that they have, you know, done this and the new day is dawned and we're going to have a whole new. Because they need to see what you're doing, something unprecedented. You need to see what the immediate consequences are. Because your war game or your political game that you did in your office isn't necessarily to parallel what happens in the real world as events transpire.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, I agree with some of that. I think that's the challenge of gunboat diplomacy, which is what this was. You know, you pull up off the shore, you do this quick strike, but then you can't just hang out on your boat and assume that the very Machiavellian number two, whose brother can rubber, has a rubber stamp parliament at his disposal. And by the way, we've heard nothing about where the military is going on this. You know, there are these paramilitary groups that have been operating that operated under Maduro. There are a whole lot of political prisoners rotting in Venezuelan jails right now. We haven't heard of them. But the one thing I haven't actually heard, you mentioned it, but it's not clear that Trump or even Rubio, I mean, he did sort of speak to this, and I think he was sent to clean up some of the challenging rhetoric that off the cuff Trump remarks generated, including that we discussed on the emergency podcast that's about elections. So she, you know, she's there now. And Trump has been giving mixed signals on this, saying, well, you know, we want to get the oil secure, we want to help them rebuild, and then we'll have an election. Well, the people of Venezuela deserve to elect a leader. They want an elected representative. They. That's exactly what Maduro took from them when he refused to concede the last election. Problem, of course, is that it's not clear that we know who they would choose. Now we hope that they would choose someone who would support the American intervention. I mean, there is a guy who won, actually would be a perfectly.

[John Pooretz]

Not only one. He not only won according to their own count.

[Eliana Johnson]

Right? Right.

[John Pooretz]

No, I mean, 70% of the vote.

[Eliana Johnson]

But you have to hold an election. And the problem with the Trump administration right now is that all we the only consistent thing we've heard so far is about drugs and oil. And the drug message as we have discussed is a little contradictory given the pardoning of someone, you know, the Honduran former president. But there's also this problem of the oil. And right now Chevron is the only company operating, foreign company operating in Venezuela. Even if other companies get involved, even if that stuff is rebuilt, that's a long term process. And you cannot wait to have a free and fair election in this, in that country until the oil companies resolve all their deal, deal making. And I think that's where again, the messaging really does matter here. The American people are giving the President and this administration the benefit of the doubt. That will not happen if say he has to go in and do another raid and take out the number two. When she doesn't cooperate, then it starts to look a little bit less coherent, I think, to the American people. And he does owe us an explanation. I mean, he put our troops at risk. He claims that this is a long term strategy for making our hemisphere safer. That's fine, but then explain it to us. Is it about oil? Is it about drugs, Is it about democracy? We've heard a little bit of mixed messaging on all three of those.

[John Pooretz]

It is important to note that there was an election within the last 12 months, maybe 18 months. And by Venezuela's own unofficial count, I've already forgotten his name again. Was it Gonzalez or Rodriguez? Okay, you're muted, so I can't.

[BJ Novak]

I think it's Edmundo Gonzalez.

[John Pooretz]

Thank you. I'm sorry, this is like saying, oh, it's, you know, Goldman or Schusterman or Feynman. I apologize at the racial stereotyping of assuming that all Spanish names are the same. So Gonzalez won by the unofficial count, more than 70% of the vote. So that that election I assume can't stand. But it was the American position in 2017 when Juan Guaida won the election and Maduro stole that election. It was our official position that we wished Maduro to step down and Guaido would go in as the rightful winner of that election. Theoretically, that could be the same argument you could make now that Gonzalez won the election. The election was stolen. The election results should be, should be abided by and you don't need to have a new election or you can have him come in as the legitimately elected leader, but then it's going to.

[Eliana Johnson]

Get the puppet regime. That, that's sort of interrupt. But that's where you start to have a domestic problem in Venezuela where people who you know, and there's still this question of the military. Who controls the military?

[John Pooretz]

Right. Okay. So these are very. I just think, my guess is, and I'm not one to say that I believe that the Trump administration is full of sophisticated, after planning for, about the.

[Eliana Johnson]

Thinking of putting Stephen Miller in charge. That's the other rumor bouncing around.

[John Pooretz]

So that would be very odd.

[Eliana Johnson]

The Post is reported that Stephen Miller might be given the Venezuela portfolio. That's one, that's one rumor from the Post. That's right.

[BJ Novak]

I think they reported he, he is likely to take on just a more senior role in, on this portfolio, which.

[John Pooretz]

Again would be weird because his entire experience is domestic, like he was, he is, he was the Republican Party's chief. I don't know what you would call it. Like, as Rich Lowry once said to me, Stephen Miller has forgotten more about immigration than most people have ever learned. So that was his bailiwick. This is not. Venezuela is obviously a, you know, 2 century foreign policy issue or, you know, South America, the Monroe Doctrine and all of that. That is not in his wheelhouse. Even if you, even if you like him or you don't like him, that would probably be an unfortunate set of circumstances. There are plenty of people who are sympathetic to Trump's efforts here who have deep expertise in Venezuela and in these matters, who could probably handle the portfolio better. But that's not obviously anything, once again, that anyone is going to listen to us about. So I am in a Pollyannish mood. Christine is in a non Pollyanna mood. And Seth, I interrupted you because you were, as I said, you were going very big picture. But my question is, do you think that what we're looking at here is an administration that knows what it's doing, or an administration that knows that it has this set of tools, unprecedented tools in its military that it is totally willing to use and therefore kind of wants to use them and is willing to say, then, then, well, then we'll just figure it all out.

[Seth Mandel]

Well, a combination, but mostly the latter, I think, honestly, because that was the point with the Iran bomb, that was the bombing of the Iran nuclear facilities, was that Trump became convinced that not everything is going to turn into the Iraq war, which was his big fear. And so he's convinced here also that we could take out Maduro and put him on trial without this turning into the Iraq war. But I just don't think that there's that much they could really know about what his, what Maduro's number two and the rest of them who are technically still in charge were really planning for this. It's not like they could go to his vice president and for four months planned a coup in which she was brought into, you know, the picture of ousting Maduro. And then there were plans drawn up. Without that sort of planning, you can't have that. You can't know that much about what she's thinking or about what they're going to do because you can't widen the net of people who know what's going to happen wide enough to build a government in waiting or anything approximating it.

[John Pooretz]

Okay, so let's, let's jump off this because I'm not sure we have any more insight to be had and go to, I think what is a very big piece of news because it has ramifications for 2028 and for the Democratic Party's position at present, which is that Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota is going apparently going to announce today that he is not running for the third term. He expected to run and win in Minnesota this year owing to clearly the explosion of the now 7 or even 8 year old scandal involving the Somali daycare billions. That I must say is the particular bailiwick of Eliana's father, Scott Johnson, who has been writing, covering, explaining this story now on powerline blog for 7 and a half years. So if you've been reading Power Line blog, you have been on this, you know, four, seven and a half years.

[Eliana Johnson]

Can I just say, I want, I got to interrupt for a second because this is what drives me nuts about our mainstream media. They're like, we speak truth to power. We really challenge power. He's actually about to topple a governor and has exposed real abuse of government funding and of tax.

[John Pooretz]

Yeah, that's two, that's two depositions for Power Line because we have Walls being deposed. And of course, in 2004, it was power Line in the comments section that revealed that the, that the George W. Bush papers being promulgated by 60 Minutes were, were faked. So that's a.

[Seth Mandel]

Just to add, by the way, he since we started talking, Walls has made the Walls has made it official.

[John Pooretz]

Oh, yes. Okay.

[Seth Mandel]

So, Eliana, I came to the conclusion that I can't give a political campaign my all.

[John Pooretz]

So this is an amazing story. And let's just talk about the larger point here, which is that this does not only affect him. Kamala Harris is apparently running for president in 2028. She made one decision. She made one decision. It was Governor Jasmine her entire political career, one decision.

[BJ Novak]

It was really two decisions. It Was one a.

[John Pooretz]

Not picking the Jew? Are you gonna say not picking the Jew? Okay.

[BJ Novak]

It was the rejection of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in order to choose Minnesota Governor Tim Walls. And John, I just want to offer a tiny correction to what you said, which was that the mostly Somali perpetrated fraud in Minnesota was daycare fraud. The daycare fraud is the latest, really a small part of the massive fraud perpetrated on Minnesota's waivered Medicare programs. And the daycare fraud is just the latest one brought to our attention. But really the largest fraud that was revealed in 2021 was the feeding Our future fraud perpetrated on a Covid era program feeding kids. And there have been others revealed, but. But it's not limited to daycare. And Tim Walls is stepping down because in my interpretation is two major reports brought these frauds to national attention. Yes, it's true. Local news outlets like Powerline Blog, which my dad writes for, and other Minnesota local news outlets have been covering this stuff for a long time. But when Tim walls ran in 2024, the national news outlets did not cover this. This was not a major theme in the campaign. Now, Chris Ruffo and Ryan Thorpe at City Journal did a piece that went majorly viral on the Somali fraud perpetrated on these. On these programs that had its flaws, but it went viral and brought this to national attention, including the attention of the Trump administration. And second, a YouTuber by the name of Nick Shirley did a majorly viral 42 minute video. Again, it had its flaws, it made some errors, but it made the point and it brought this again to major national attention.

[John Pooretz]

So.

[BJ Novak]

So these guys, imperfect as they are, did the job that the national media did in holding Tim Walls to account and bringing this issue to national attention. So, you know, kudos to them. That's not an easy job. And many people in the local media have been covering this for many years without the sort of national recognition that it deserves. And Tim Walls and Keith Ellison and all these people in the wake of this have been trying to say that they were on this and that's not. It's been exposed as a complete and utter lie.

[Eliana Johnson]

And two other things to that, when they have been covering this most recent iteration of the story because it went viral, a lot of mainstream media outlets have been attacking the messenger.

[BJ Novak]

That's all I've been doing.

[Eliana Johnson]

Exactly. Yeah, you know what?

[BJ Novak]

It was only four of the 10 daycares that were fraudulent. That's been the CNN coverage and the New York Times coverage and all this stuff. It's like oh, great. You know What? Like only 10% was fraud. Only 40% was fraud. Like we're supposed to feel good about that.

[Eliana Johnson]

But the other, the other thing that hopefully this will spark, and this was, this has been a long standing theme that we started discussing during COVID after Covid throughout the Biden administration. And we should continue to do it now, which is that people should start to look into their own state and local government fraud. This kind of fraud is rampant. I mean, in California, there have been a couple of reports coming out, trickling out about how these programs funnel money to nonprofits, radical nonprofits is taxpayer money. So this I hope, might, might spark a belated investigation at every state, in every state by responsible journalists who want to actually find out where taxpayer money is going. Why are we wasting so much money? Why is, why is this fraud and this grift. Because it's not just fraud. Some of this is actually legal. But it's completely reprehensible in terms of how this money's being spent. It's not helping the people who need the help. It's lining the pockets of know nonprofit grifters who happen to have political sway with a governor or local official.

[Seth Mandel]

And Ellison can prove us all wrong.

[Eliana Johnson]

By the way.

[Seth Mandel]

He'S the Attorney General of Minnesota. So if we're wrong that Keith Ellison has not been on this, he can very easily produce documentation showing otherwise. He's the Attorney General. Oh, you have an investigation.

[John Pooretz]

Great.

[Seth Mandel]

Let's see what you got. But on the wider point about Ellison is that I'm wondering if there's going to be any sort of pressure, anything like what we've seen on district attorneys for a while now in terms of local crime, if people are going to wake up as part of what Christine is saying about, about who is watching the watchers on state governments, there is some attention on Ellison here because the Attorney General, the state Attorney General is in position to do that. And I wonder if we will see that elsewhere. Renewed attention on the state attorneys general as people who are just standing around with their hands in their pockets the way that DA's were standing around letting crime explode around them.

[BJ Novak]

One other point, I would refer people to our lead story in the Beacon this morning, which, which is by my dad. The headline is bring in more prosecutors. Because I do think the virality of the recent stories and City journal and Shirley's YouTube video creates the impression that nothing is being done about this fraud. When in reality the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Minnesota is led by some incredibly skilled Attorneys, and they are the ones who really have brought these frauds to national attention as well. They are screaming from the rooftops that Minnesota is drowning in fraud. The president prosecutor there, Joe Thompson, has described the fraud as industrial scale. He has said that it's fraud, covered in fraud, fraud upon fraud. They're like, you know, Russian nesting dolls of fraud. And to that point in these day, these daycares, several of them were feeding our future sites. So there are multiple frauds being perpetrated here. But the U.S. attorney's office right now has a team, a fraud team that consists of five prosecutors. So for people of good conscience who are just learning about this and wondering what can be done, what should be done, the answer is send more prosecutors to tackle the fraud in Minnesota to the U.S. attorney's office to beef up the fraud team.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, that's a Trump administration decision that he should be doing rather than like sharing conspiratorial videos about Waltz, which is what he did over the weekend, like send actual people to prosecute the crime. Don't just, you know, worry about what your tick tock and, and social media.

[John Pooretz]

I mean, what's important about that is that this is a gift, political gift that will keep on giving if that's the case. And the frauds that we know about and have known about for the over the last six or seven years at state levels or longer than that, a lot of them do involve blue states awash in taxpayer dollars with very powerful governors who are either turning a blind eye or participating in it. Andrew Cuomo, Olaf Asolem, Andrew Cuomo there literally was involved in a billion dollar fraud scheme to profit political connections of his around Buffalo. The missing billion, that's like chump change compared to what the numbers we're talking about in Minnesota. But if you do one, you do a lot more. There is an $800 million missing fund in the model of feeding our future run by Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York's wife, called change New York, $800 million. Literally nobody knows where that money went and what it was spent on. And the media in these places, there's always a resolute person in the media who covers them and helps bring them out. And then they face this kind of headwind from editors and other reporters and MSNBC and others who are clearly worried about exposing bad political graft behavior on the part of blue staters because they think it's not going to look good. Think about a world in which Kamala Harris knew not only about the fraud, but would be worried that if she chose Tim Walls a week later, there would be national stories all over the place about feeding our future. She'd say, I can't pick him. I mean, I like him. He's, you know, he could talk the talk to ordinary people. He's a coach. He was this and he was that. But nobody in the democratic political structure says to themselves, I have, there is an 800 pound gorilla sitting here because.

[James Patterson]

They know I'm James Patterson. I write way too many books. Welcome to Hungry Dogs. The title comes from my maternal grandmother, Isabel Zalvis Morris. Nan used to always say, hungry dogs run faster, James. And I've been running fast ever since. Here's what will be coming your way soon. And this is a really terrific list. I think you'll hear from some incredible people. Stacey Abrams. Yay. BJ Novak.

[BJ Novak]

Yay.

[James Patterson]

Kathy Bates. Dolly Parton. Josh Gad. And Pope Leo. Okay, maybe not Pope Leo, but who knows, maybe he'll show up. Hungry dogs run faster. Thank you, grandma, for turning me into a hopeless, obsessive, compulsive. Listen to Hungry Dogs with James Patterson. That'd be me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Foreign.

[John Pooretz]

They're going to get off scot free.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, and for.

[John Pooretz]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, for 20. You said 2028. This is, this is. When we started this conversation, you said this has implications for 2028. Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris are perhaps the biggest target right now, or should be, of a media that wants to under uncover state level fraud in blue states. California is sitting there and you better be sure they have a ton of nonprofits through which taxpayer dollars have been funneled for decades. And a lot of those nonprofits are doing nefarious things that again might not be fraudulent. They're not spending it on vacations as some of these people did, but that what they're doing is something that the taxpayers might be shocked to find out their money is being spent on. So there's two tiers here. There's the actual fraud, and then there's the political question of whether taxpayers want their money spent on some of this. Now, Californians might not mind, but the point is to expose people like Newsom, people like Harris to the kind of national conversation about whether that's what a country wants to be run by is a governor who actually funded the kind of extreme left wing projects that are popular in California.

[BJ Novak]

And do any of you guys think that the next time Kamala Harris does a national interview she will be asked, were you aware of these frauds? Did your vetting team find, did Eric Holder in his vetting bring these to your attention?

[Eliana Johnson]

Maybe on cbs, when does she ever do an interview?

[BJ Novak]

Do you now regret your choice?

[John Pooretz]

Yeah.

[BJ Novak]

How will you change when you run in 2028? How will you change your vetting practices if you were not aware? How will you go about your choice differently? Like, will she really be pressed on this? I have no. I don't even think she'll be pressed.

[John Pooretz]

She will not be pressed until the debates and then they will be upon her like the poor woman in the water.

[BJ Novak]

She'll for it in the debates.

[John Pooretz]

She should. Exactly.

[BJ Novak]

Walls do when he debated Vance and Vance wiped the floor with him. And by the way, this is, this just brings to mind like in the rare, you know, mainstream, like television appearances. I do, I went on PBS NewsHour, whatever. And I remember I talking about Vance or Vance. Walls had just been picked. And I said, the guy has exaggerated his military record. He's a compulsive liar. And the response from the host was like, he hasn't done that. What's your proof? What are you talking about? And this ended up really hurting Walls. Like the guy was obviously a compulsive liar. And you go out and say that their response, just as we're seeing with Nick Shirley and you know, these people who are seeking to hold elected officials to account, isn't to press the candidate, it's to press the reporters who make the claims.

[John Pooretz]

Well, it's sort of like, you know, sort of like the, the revolution in mainstream media that is being undertaken by Bari Weiss. Barry Weiss. What, what happened to Barry Weiss at the New York Times? She was deemed by her colleagues to have created conditions in which they felt unsafe by publishing an op ed. Right. That is do something that does not immediately advance the ideological interests of one side of this conversation and means will be found to discredit you, displace you or take you out. Nick Shirley may have made mistakes. Whatever. He went, he rang doorbells, he tried to find out what was like a.

[BJ Novak]

21 year old YouTuber. A 24 year old YouTuber, like out on his own, you know.

[John Pooretz]

Yeah, but like that's the sort of thing that you're supposed to say. Wow, that was. That's very enterprising. Yeah, he made some mistakes. You know what would be good? He should get hired by a mainstream News organization.

[BJ Novak]

He's 40% right or 50% right on a pretty right.

[John Pooretz]

And teach him some professionalism so that he's not left to do this entirely on his own. That maybe someone can take Andrew Kaczynski.

[Seth Mandel]

Could take him under his wing. That's how. That's how he. During that election. That's how he became who he was.

[John Pooretz]

That's right.

[Seth Mandel]

Started out with YouTube videos.

[John Pooretz]

I think it's very important to talk about this because Covid is not over. Covid is not over. And people always think that these things are over. They thought that the financial crisis was over and Trump was the election about the 2008 financial meltdown. Six trillion dollars was spent in the United States on Covid. It is likely that a trillion or more dollars of that was stolen. Let. Let's just step back.

[Eliana Johnson]

Can I say, can I add one other layer to that? And then I'll let you continue, please. This is not just a financial scandal. This is a moral and spiritual scandal for a nation that is supposed to actually do things well and not in a corrupted, corrupted way, and not in a way that overlooks or winks at graft because one's political side is on board with the. With the issues or activities being promoted. This actually demoralizes us as a nation and as a people if we do not bring to justice. And again, this is not political. This is anyone who. Who participates in these kinds of grifts because it ruins all of us. It leads. It breeds greater mistrust, mistrust in our politicians and our political culture, but also in our institutions if we're just printing money and handing it out to anyone and there's no accountability. So I think this is a moral and spiritual crisis, not just a financial one. Sorry.

[John Pooretz]

I mean, that is the most important point. And I think the centrality of the phalanx that said, do not question official behavior on Covid clearly had in part in ways that we were too innocent or naive to see, a very large secret financial component. It wasn't just teachers want to stay home and it's easier for them and they're screwing the kids because they don't want to go to work. They'd rather just do it. By zoom. It is that teachers are part of a unionized teachers are part of this gigantic world of people who are funded by the federal and state governments in the United States who have come up over the last 50 years with modalities for getting the money, keeping the money, using the money to lobby government to keep the money flowing. And that when this unprecedented flow of cash from federal and state governments came their way, started privately. Right. A lot of this before COVID or Even while Covid was going on the. Whatever it was, the $9 billion raised, again, that's not 6 trillion. The $9 billion raised to combat to help Black Lives Matter most broadly understood, not just the organization Black Lives Matter, but to come combat all of that, where did that money go? That was private money. I'm not now talking about public money, but this is a world of people who weaponize and use issues to enrich themselves, their colleagues, and their entire world. And something occurs to me, which is we're always talking about how the nationalization of ideological issues. Right. Has corrupted Congress, or it's kind of like made Congress less important. Individual congressmen don't have anything to talk about because all issues are national. They can't bring in local issues and all that. It's not just Republicans and the sort of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert world of people who like to play these games along with Trump. This is a fantastic dodge for Democratic politicians, for all of them, because if you make everything about the first principle, ideological matters, then people will immediately be on your side defending you. When someone says, hey, wait a minute, where is that $20 billion that. That went defeating our future, and it's like, oh, are you attacking Somalia? Are you attacking. You're joining in with Trump on immigration. You're demonizing African immigrants who are just trying to help people. This is part of a war on race. And this and that and the other thing. It's incredibly useful. It is, look, hey, squirreling unbelievable amounts of graft, unbelievable amounts of fraud. And when we talk about the lack of trust in institutions, part of the problem we have when we say it's really terrible that Americans have lost trust in institutions is that they should. They should not have trust in these institutions. These institutions have failed us, have stolen money from us, have not made things better. So we need people to have faith that democratic institutions function. But what do you do when they don't?

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, in this. Go ahead, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

No, I was just gonna say the COVID comparison is important because of the fact that the two. The two notches on the COVID timeline for school aid were, first, a couple years in, none of it was spent. Right. We had, you know, all this money was given out to schools, and none of it was spent by these districts. Almost none of it was spent in min. Boggling amount was just sitting there. And similar to, in these cases, where is the money going? And second, after that happened, they wrapped things up in 2024 with studies about where the money, what the money accomplished, and the wall Street Journal had this story about, you know, essentially saying there was $200 billion of COVID era school aid that was meant to, that was meant to mitigate the effects of school closures and make up for it. And its effects were basically nil. I mean, they didn't say nil, but it was, you know, they had no real hard facts to go with anything. They just said, you know, its effects were, were minimal. And then the money ran out. So, you know, the government is doing this thing where it says it's okay for us to close the schools for these years because we can make up for it. Here's $200 billion. And what happens is the taxpayers end up not just in addition to their, their children being left behind in education, they are also $200 billion poorer.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, and this is also where I think, historically and culturally, I hope that second term Trump will prove to be a transitional era for a lot of these larger questions. Because while it's completely understandable that he was brought back as a reactionary force against everything we've just described, and a lot of Americans voted for him for precisely that reason, his response, his reactionary response, which is a little bit on the other extreme, to say sort of like, let's just blow all these institutions up because clearly they failed us. That long term brings, creates new problems. We're already starting to see some of those in the sense of like, do we have enough people to prosecute fraud because half the Justice Department's been fired? Do we actually have a government infrastructures in place that are functioning bureaucratically in a healthy way, doing the things they're supposed to do that aren't politicized? Well, not in every case. So you can abolish the Department of Education, a long, stern, long standing conservative goal, but how do you regulate what's going on in these, you know, at the federal level for some of these policies? So I think he, he might end up being a necessary cleansing force. But I, this is why I'm always harping on, does he have a long term strategy? Does he have a long term plan? Because conservatives need a strategy and a plan because the left will just throw money at the, if we, if the conservatives become the people who shrug and say, well, we'll just take the money and hope for the best. We're not solving that problem.

[John Pooretz]

Okay, let's talk about the left throwing money at a problem, because we did. We have not yet happened on five days ago. Discuss the swearing in and the new mayoralty of Zoram Hamdani. In New York City. Remember, this is the largest city in the country by a factor of two. And while New York City politicians rarely rise above the mayoralty, they don't really go anywhere. It's a kind of one and done job. I mean, they spend their lives afterwards in various pursuits. But it's not like we're looking at Mamdani, and you should think, oh, my God, he'll be the next President of the United States or something. First of all, he can't be, because he was born in Uganda. But obviously it's an important job. And, you know, I live in New York, and so I'm very worried about what's going to happen to New York. But that's not the important thing that happened with his swearing in, which is that he basically brought to life the, in his own words, the entire philosophy of the villain structure in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. He wants, though he doesn't really have the power to do so, but he wants to impose government structures on free enterprise in the name of collectivism. He wants. He has said he will. If landlords aren't nice to you, the government will step in and take over their buildings. If I mean literally what he said in his inaugural address, he has people who are working for him, his legal counsel, his director of community affairs and this and that, saying things like, we're going to do things that are going to hurt white people to help other people. Out of their mouths. Coming out of their mouths like it's almost a direct quote.

[Seth Mandel]

The quote, by the way, from the. From the swearing. The quote from that inauguration was, we will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. So it is literal. He didn't.

[John Pooretz]

It is literal. It is literally what it is. Literally. I'm not a fan of Ayn Rand, and I'm not a fan of Atlas Shrug, but you got to give her credit. She found in this dystopian image of activist government for the purpose of social and moral and political. Lev. It's not leavening. What am I thinking of? Evening Whatever. You know, this is a real thing that Mamdani is now giving voice to innocently, in some weird way, like, if he were cleverer, he would not have formulated. He would not have made it as clear as he has made it to people just how radical his intentions are. Saying, the warmth of collectivism. There is a word that we all have that means. You don't have to use the word collectivism. It's communitarianism. You say it Takes a village. Right. It's the community. We will replace the frigidity of individualism with the warmth of communitarianism.

[Seth Mandel]

Government is just the name we give to the things we do together. Isn't that the Obama era of thing?

[John Pooretz]

Right. But even right when Obama said that though, that was the point. Which is it was, this was not necessarily something that was going to be imposed from above. And he's saying, I'm imposing it from above. I will make you. That is what collectivism is. It collectivism only exists if it is imposed from above. Because that nasty, you know, rugged individualism is always going to try to poke its way through so that people can do things like, you know, run for mayor and become huge national celebrities out of nowhere when they were unknown just a year earlier. I don't know how you become a mayor, how that it was not an act of rugged individualism on his part, but, but it was very, it's very helpful.

[BJ Novak]

Yeah, he, you said if he didn't want to say collectivism, he could have said communitarianism. But he, he explicitly mocked Democrats who, who walk on eggshells around or explicitly reject the embrace of big government. He said to those who insist the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this. No longer will city hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers lives. And that was a shot across the bow of Bill Clinton and Clinton. And so it seemed pretty clear to me that he's not going to use to govern in euphemisms.

[John Pooretz]

Right.

[BJ Novak]

He's going to say we like government, we like Marxism, we like communism. And we talked during the campaign about how the through line in his beliefs was an animus towards Israel and to a certain extent and towards Zionist Jews. You know, he likes the zoos for Jews, for Zohran who aren't actually Jews, you know, observing Jews. But now it seems to me that he's a hardliner on, on government and the use of government power as well, where he's talking about it in totally explicit terms and hard edged cold terms.

[Seth Mandel]

And it is the same as, as refusing to condemn the phrase globalize the intifada or from the river to the sea, which in that Bulwark podcast interview was the other phrase put to him, you know, would you. By Tim Miller. Would you. Don't you understand what some people hear when you say these things? Right. It's the same thing. It's that he, he could very easily find other ways to say to, to send out the message that he supports the ideas behind globalizing the intifada.

[Eliana Johnson]

But.

[Seth Mandel]

But he won't denounce the words globalized the intifada, and he won't not use the term collectivism itself. It's all part of that.

[James Patterson]

Right.

[Eliana Johnson]

But he could use a little bit.

[BJ Novak]

Of giving a middle finger to Bill Clinton. But he wanted to give a middle finger to Bill Clintonism.

[Eliana Johnson]

But he does embrace the weasel words when it comes to the Jews and to Israel, because what he does, we now know that his, his lawyers on his campaign, as soon as he was running, started trying to figure out a way to soften the blow of what we knew he wanted to do from day one and did, which is rescind the definition of anti Semitism to note, to rescind several of the executive orders that have been done by the previous mayor, but to not make it look like he was targeting the Jews in New York or targeting Israel specifically. So he. There was. There's strategy and stealth when it comes to trying to pretend like what his animus is is Zionism or the state of Israel or Bibi Netanyahu. Again, another irony that condemned the capture of Maduro, but himself still promotes the idea that he should arrest Netanyahu if Netanyahu ever sets foot in New York City. But he is kind of being dishonest and not straightforward about that because he still believes that there's some political repercussions if he does that. But what he did with the rescinding of those orders, he did them all at once to pretend like it was a clean slate. But that's not what his goal is. His goal is actually to rescind protections of Jews in New York, to rescind. To bring back BDS in New York City. I mean, these are obviously his goals.

[John Pooretz]

I think that's what's important because I'm not even sure they're weasel words. That's what's interesting about it. If you want to weasel, you don't do it. You form a task force. You, you know, debate the question of whether or not the IHRA definition of anti Semitism impedes upon free speech, which is what he said was the reason for its, for its New York's revocation of accepting the definition, which is it's not 100% wrong. So, I mean, I have problems with the IHRA definition of antisemitism. If you need to define it in law, it's pretty much the only way that you can do it because Jews occupy this very peculiar position in that we are half an ethnicity and half a faith and so it's very difficult. Jews have difficulty defining Jews. That one of the reasons that he can sort of like make an appeal to say that he has plenty of Jewish support because he can pull out this transgender rabbi over here and this communist, you know, person in communist opposition to the particularism of Israel over there and somebody else who is, you know, literally never set foot inside a synagogue over here. And you can cobble them together and say they're Jews and say that they're on his side. This is why he wants the job. He doesn't want the job because he likes government. Right. Clinton likes government. Democrats like government. He is looking. He is a revolutionary, and he is a serious revolutionary. And he wishes to impose measures from above that will create state run financial institutions that will create, you know, that will create the conditions under which Jews are not afforded protections because they are. Because the, you know, sort of official Jewish community backs an evil nation and has evil interests. This is. He's in this to do bds. He's in this to rescind the IHRA definition, and he is in it to promote and push collectivism, which is not liking government. It is the imposition of a set of anti democratic, anti individualist values that are at the heart of the American experiment. And he's 36 years old or old. He is. And he means business now. He's. And his people, they're very skilled at promotion. We're now going to see what happens when the rubber meets the road. And there are different kinds of ways in which this can happen. New York is a city with a lot of private resources to combat anything that he might throw at private industry. And it's full of a lot of people who will stop at nothing to stop him, you know, intellectually, ideologically, argumentatively and all of that. And these people come out of the shadows, are taking over various divisions and parts of the city government. And, you know, it's not that easy to run a city agency in a city that has a budget of $120 billion. It's probably pretty easy to steal from it, but it's not actually easy to administer it. And, you know, these people have no experience doing anything. A lot of them. And so it will.

[Eliana Johnson]

They do have experience in one thing. They are professional ideological activists who have. I mean, many of them come out of the Black Lives Matter movement or the sort of Democratic socialist activist wing. So they know how to do specific things. Although I think you're right that perhaps what will save New York City isn't any sort of ideological wave from the, from the right, you know, defending it. But the absolute intransigence of probably like old school Democrats who work in city government and actually have to make things happen. They will not, I think, take a liking to these, you know, highly educated, top down ideological bureaucrats coming in and saying, mamdani appointed me to tell you to do this. I mean, they can quietly maybe slow things down a bit. That's where actually bureaucrats can be useful against revolutionary forces.

[John Pooretz]

Look.

[Seth Mandel]

Well, also there's another aspect of this which is we should say, you know, Mayor Adams did something very good in writing those executive orders that Mamdani intended to rescind. Right. Adams wanted to put this front and center. He wanted Mamdani to have to come out and say, I want bds, so I'm getting rid of the anti BDS executive order or whatever. He wanted Momdani to have to be challenged publicly about how far you take the things you say you believe when you actually get into the job. And that was done. And on day one, he did those, you know, he rescinded those orders and he made sure, by the way, his, you know, he made sure his staff made sure that the New York Times had a story ready to go that cast doubt on the excuse that he planned to use. Right. In other words, he, he, he, he wanted everybody to know that he wasn't really trying to do something in the name of good governance by rescinding all executive orders after the 2024 point where Mayor Adams was supposedly an illegitimate office holder. He wanted everybody to know that he intended to do this and that he was looking for an excuse to do this that he didn't really believe in. And so I think that there's a lesson here in what Adams did which is, you know, it's a sort of trust but verify thing, except without the trust, which is like hold people to their words. You won't denounce, globalize the intifada. You say you want to arrest Bibi Netanyahu, but not Nicholas Maduro. All this stuff make people face up to what it actually means and their actual intentions. And I think that was very good and maybe something that we can keep in mind as this goes forward, that that sort of confrontational approach, which isn't really that confrontational because Adams believed in the executive orders that he wrote. He believed very strongly. And the only reason he wrote them was because he believed that that if those protections were going to remain, they would have to be passed before mom Donnie came in. So I think that that's a lesson here also.

[John Pooretz]

Look, here's what happens to mayors, okay? Snowstorms, A kid, you know, three year old kid dies of abuse, who has been in the children's services system and has, and there is a social worker who works for the city who ignored the signs of abuse. A policeman is forced to take his unholster his gun and shoot at somebody because that person is trying to kill somebody else. And there's a controversy over it because there may be a racial component to it. All of this is going to happen to him in the next three months and he will. How he responds to that, generally speaking, is going to be an important tell because he is showing signs that he is going to hew to his deepest beliefs, which are that the city should not be doing anything. You know, the cops shouldn't do things. And public order is not going to be preserved in the traditional way by a strong police department because he's already downgraded the status of the police commissioner, put her under a deputy mayor, as opposed to having an open door policy. Always. You know, since 1989, the police commissioner has been the second most important official in city government. He does not want that to be the case anymore. And he will, he will do this openly and publicly and he will defend the social worker against the dead kid. Mark my words. You know, he will say, you know, the problem is not the problem. Problem is that the system is rigged against the social worker, not that it's bad for the children. And we'll see how that plays. Like, you know, one of the things about him is he is speaking to a population of people in New York City who do not have normal political incentives. They're young, they don't own things, they don't have children. They are very, they seem to be very envious socially, sort of professionally, personally. Envy messages seem to be resonating with them, even though they're sort of like upper middle class in coloration. And maybe this stuff will not be as punishing as you would think that it will be. I'm guessing that we're still sane enough that it will be, you know, he, he, he won 50% of the vote, not 80% of the vote. And you know, so 50% of the city voted against him in a very, very contentious election with a lot of voters. And he doesn't, you know, he has a mandate and he's using it and good, like let him use it because, you know, let's, let's have this out. Now that he's there, he's doing us A favor. He's not doing me a favor because I live in New York, and if it goes, you know, into the sewer, you know, that's my home. But I mean, he's at least going to be. He's not going to be pretending to be something that he's not, which I think.

[Seth Mandel]

And he's. And the lack of euphemism means that you're not going to be able to say real socialism has never been tried, or whatever. The fact that he's coming in saying we're doing collectivism, the term collectivism, if collectivism doesn't work, collectivism has failed, in the mayor's own words.

[BJ Novak]

I ran as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist, except not.

[John Pooretz]

Not a Democrat. He's not really a democratic socialist. He's a socialist. So he's not really a Democrat either. But now you're saying that real collectivism is going to be tried. We always say real. This real leftism has never been tried. Well, now maybe he's going to try. So I have one recommendation. Then we'll go. I loved the movie Marty Supreme. I loved it. I know some people who don't like it because the main character is a very shifty and morally ambiguous person. But this portrait of a hustler in 1952 New York is one of the most sheerly entertaining movies I've seen in years and one of the most brilliantly acted movies I have seen in years, with astounding performances from, as you may have heard, Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O' Leary from Shark Tank as the chief villain, and Gwyneth Paltrow off the bench for the first time in 10 or 15 years in a really meaty part. And Timothee Chalamet, who gives a performance for the ages as Marty Supreme. It's. It's kinetic. It moves like a freight train. It's about, you know, basically a month in the life of a person, a reckless person who is doing everything he can to try to fulfill his aims and keeps getting crosswise of all kinds of pickeresque villains and his own mistakes and all of that. And I just. I couldn't have loved it more. So I am very much recommending Marty Supreme. And we'll be back tomorrow. So for Christine, Seth and Eliana, I'm John Pooretz. Keep the candle bur.

[Eliana Johnson]

Sa.