New Kids on the Blockade

Summary

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The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: New Kids on the Blockade
Date: April 13, 2026
Participants: Jon Podhoretz (host), Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, Eliana Johnson, Seth Mandel, Eli Lake (guest)

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Episode Overview

This episode analyzes the latest developments in the Iran conflict—most notably President Trump's announcement of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, ongoing ceasefire negotiations, and U.S.–Iranian diplomatic brinkmanship. It also touches on shifting Israeli sentiment, implications for regional security (including developments with Hezbollah and Lebanon), the politics of victory and defeat in war, media coverage of the conflict, and the recent electoral upset in Hungary as a parable for claims about “rising autocracy” globally and domestically.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz

• Background: Trump announced a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil chokepoint, after Iran failed to honor a ceasefire meant to keep the strait open ([03:00–08:55]).

• Strategic Logic:

  • Iran relies heavily on exporting oil via the Strait; by blockading Iranian ports, the U.S. targets Iran’s economic lifeline. It's a “Bart in Blazing Saddles” strategy—“If my allies can’t get their oil to market, then you can’t get yours either… and that means you, China” (Eli Lake, [13:06]).
  • Trump has turned Iran’s former leverage into U.S. leverage, with CENTCOM beginning mine-clearing operations ([13:57–16:14]).

• Notable exchange:

  • Jon Podhoretz compares the situation to Bart in Blazing Saddles, holding a gun to his own head:

    “Trump is now putting the gun to everyone’s head—‘One more move and the end gets it.’” ([10:53], Jon Podhoretz)

  • Eli Lake compares Trump’s move to a scene in A Bronx Tale:

    “You want to be the madman? No, I’m the madman. Try explaining that to China, because I think he [Trump] knows something that hasn’t been made public.” ([11:45–13:06], Eli Lake)

2. Ceasefire Negotiations: Iranian Enrichment and U.S. Red Lines

• Failed talks: Despite 21 hours of negotiations in Pakistan, the U.S. and Iran failed to agree. Iran insisted on its "right to enrich uranium"—something the Trump camp firmly rejects, even more than Israeli negotiators have previously done ([04:00–07:08]).
• Contrast with Obama-era JCPOA:
  • Eli Lake revisits how the U.S. under Obama-Kerry tolerated limited enrichment–but Trump’s “no enrichment” red line is now decisive.
  • U.S. has “rubble-ized” Iranian enrichment facilities, per Israeli sources ([04:00–07:08]).
• Diplomatic stuck point: If Iran insists on enrichment, there’s little prospect for a deal. The economic toll on Iran is mounting, with potential for internal unrest ([16:12–17:58]).

3. Media Coverage and Israeli Public Opinion

• Press framing: Discussion of New York Times reporting that Israelis feel despair over the war’s perceived lack of success, juxtaposed with polling suggesting Israelis actually support Trump’s strategy and are dissatisfied primarily with the idea of a ceasefire ([31:04–35:08]).
• Polling nuances: Polls show more concern about an “American concession” (the ceasefire) than a belief the war is lost ([34:13], Jon Podhoretz).
• Media narrative:
  • Abe Greenwald:

    “The recent narrative being crafted [is] that all of this is the fault of Bibi, the lone madman on a crusade who doesn’t even have the support of the Israelis…” ([44:29], Abe Greenwald)

• Seth Mandel’s critique: Media—and even Israelis—now navigate a complex sense of victory, with political leaders obliged to “put a good face” on ambiguous or classified military results ([25:10–27:33], [26:49–27:33]).

4. Military Situation: Israel, Hezbollah, and Enrichment Facilities

• IDF operations: Recent major Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon reported to have destroyed a significant portion of Hezbollah’s offensive capacity ([25:10–30:03], Bibi Netanyahu’s speech summarized).
• Innovative diplomacy: Israel and the Lebanese government now negotiating, with Hezbollah’s status in question. Eliana Johnson and Eli Lake stress the importance of these talks as a “political sea change” ([27:37–30:03]).
  • Eli Lake:

    “Iran is not part of those negotiations… Iran determining the fate of Lebanon… that’s huge… A brilliant piece of statecraft from Bibi…” ([27:37–30:03], Eli Lake)

• Nuclear status: Iran claims to have ~900kg of enriched uranium; unclear how operational this is after strikes on enrichment facilities ([42:34–44:02], Eli Lake).

5. Blockade: Implementation and Risks

• Technical/military aspects:
  • The U.S. Navy has experience in minesweeping; keeping the waterway open is “not an insurmountable military challenge” ([41:23], Eli Lake).
  • IRGC’s small boats and mines are a threat, but manageable ([40:25–42:22], Eli Lake & Christine Rosen).
• Victory conditions:
  • Discussion: Can victory be “declared” if the opponent never concedes defeat (e.g., Iran, Hezbollah)?
  • Jon Podhoretz:

    “Defeat doesn’t require someone saying uncle. It requires whoever… losing all their capability to be a threat…”
    ([49:44–53:00], Jon Podhoretz and Abe Greenwald)

  • Abe Greenwald:

    “A logical obscenity… every power that decides it will never admit defeat will always win. That’s just ridiculous.” ([53:00–53:27])

6. Political Fallout: Orban’s Defeat and U.S. "Autocracy" Parallels

• Hungarian election: Viktor Orban defeated by an opposition running on corruption. Orban’s changes to Hungary’s system reportedly backfired ([56:12–64:07]).

• Implications for U.S. Politics:

  • The group dismisses American claims that Trump is “Hitler” or part of a growing global wave of autocracy, using Orban’s electoral loss as evidence democratic institutions still work ([59:32–63:44]).

    • Christine Rosen:

      “Results still matter and corruption remains a very powerful tool that… the Democrats will be using in the midterms…” ([57:55], Christine Rosen)

    • Jon Podhoretz:

      “What they lay out is he’s Hitler, he’s Hitler, this is 1933… Even a country that’s only been a democracy for 35 years… is nonetheless capable of being kicked to the curb.” ([59:32–61:40], Jon Podhoretz)

• U.S. institutional resilience: Panel concurs that Trump “stress tested” American institutions but ultimately was constrained, and that both parties have undermined norms ([64:09–67:41], Christine Rosen, Seth Mandel, Jon Podhoretz).

7. Looking Forward: U.S. Politics & Alliance Politics

• Midterm forecast: Democratic control of the House seems likely; threat of Trump’s “autocracy” exaggerated in light of the system’s institutional checks ([61:40–64:07]).

• Party dynamics:

  • Right-wing populist/isolationist elements could be scapegoated if Republicans lose ground.
  • Eli Lake:

    “The worst elements of the isolationist, anti-Semitic right… are effectively saying vote for Democrats… You will have all of these ready-made scapegoats and I am here for it. I’ve got my popcorn.” ([69:51–70:56])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Iranian red lines and negotiations:

  • Eli Lake:

    “…Iran’s leadership, the line on Iran is that they’ve never won a war and they’ve never lost a negotiation. Well, they ran into J.D. Vance…” ([04:00], Eli Lake)

• On U.S. strategic logic:

  • Jon Podhoretz:

    “If Iran says we're blockading anybody that we're not getting paid off by, we're saying we're blockading Iran. ... This took this to an entirely new level.” ([02:45], Jon Podhoretz)

  • Eli Lake:

    “Trump is like, if my allies can’t get their oil to market, then you can’t get yours to market. And that means you, you, China.” ([13:06], Eli Lake)

• On Israel, the U.S., and diplomatic/military victory:

  • Christine Rosen:

    “For Iran, victory is just continuing to survive. Victory for us is going to look different. ... The blockade is only going to be a temporary solution.” ([35:08], Christine Rosen)

  • Jon Podhoretz:

    “Defeat doesn’t require somebody saying uncle. It requires whoever the person is who should say uncle losing all their capability to be a threat…” ([49:44–53:00], Jon Podhoretz)

• On media framing and narrative:

  • Abe Greenwald:

    “This recent narrative... that all of this is the fault of Bibi, the lone madman on a crusade who doesn’t even have the support of the Israelis...” ([44:29], Abe Greenwald)

• On U.S. institutional stress tests:

  • Christine Rosen:

    “…he has constantly tried to sort of flex a little autocratic muscle and in most cases has been pushed back, showing that our institutions are strong, but that itself... can nevertheless degrade a country’s sort of moral bearings...” ([64:09], Christine Rosen)

  • Jon Podhoretz:

    “Obama said, ‘I have a pen and a phone and I’m not going to expect that the things I want are going to get through... I’m just going to do them on my own…’ This began a kind of period of antinomianism that Trump was the perfect person in his own emotional makeup to try to take advantage of.” ([67:41], Jon Podhoretz)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Trump’s Blockade Strategy & Regional Oil Economics: [03:00 – 13:57]
• Iran Nuclear Negotiations & U.S. Red Lines: [04:00 – 07:08]
• Israeli and Lebanese Military/Military-Diplomatic Updates: [22:59 – 30:03]
• New York Times and Israeli Public Opinion Analysis: [31:04 – 35:08]
• How to Define "Victory" over Iran & Intractable Foes: [49:44 – 53:27]
• Hungary Election, Autocracy, and Parallels for the U.S.: [56:12 – 64:09]
• U.S. Institutional Resilience and Party Politics Moving Forward: [64:09 – End]

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Closing Thoughts

The episode paints a picture of flux—militarily, diplomatically, and politically. The panel doubts mainstream narratives (media or progressive) about Israeli pessimism, American decline, or authoritarian inevitability. They argue that blockade and hardline measures against Iran are strategic, not reckless, and that U.S. and Israeli aims are aligning for now. But what victory looks like remains murky, both on the battlefield and in the tangled realms of politics and public opinion.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

[Jon Podhoretz]

Hope for the best, expect the worst

[Eli Lake]

Some drinks and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, Expect the worst,

[Jon Podhoretz]

hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Monday, 4-13-20. I am Jon Podhortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. We have a full house today with executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[Eliana Johnson]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Senior editor Seth Vandell. Hi, Seth.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

And joining us today, contributing editor, host of the Breaking History podcast, columnist of the Free Press, Eli Lake. Hi, Eli.

[Eli Lake]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, ceasefire negotiations, Pakistan, 21 hours. JD Vance comes out, says the Iranians have nothing to say to us. We'll concede on nothing. We'll move on nothing. Donald Trump announces a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which sounds counterintuitive, but we're going to get to why it is exactly not counterintuitive. And here we are Monday morning, Trump, always unexpected, gets into a fight with the Pope. Last night, Eric Swalwell is out of the governor's race in California after 48 hours of bad publicity. One of the more hilarious things to happen before we get off Eric Swalwell forever was a statement by the Swalwell senior staff in Congress saying, we all agreed that he is a monster and we're all sickened and disgusted by him. But some of us have mortgages, and so we can't quit right away. And the senior staff here at Swalwell Inc. Is going to protect the junior staffers who need to find other jobs. So we're not going to quit right now. One of the more demented statements ever to emerge, John, it was.

[Eliana Johnson]

Oh, wait, I just violated your request.

[Jon Podhoretz]

No, please.

[Eliana Johnson]

Sorry.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Eliana Johnson]

It was something like, our continuing to work on the campaign should not be taken as a statement of support for

[Jon Podhoretz]

the candidate, not just the campaign, but his congressional office. So not only are you still working for the campaign that you have now disavowed, but you can't work for a congressman whom you condemn. That doesn't. We have achieved a level of illogic that I understand that Gen Z has new ideas about how workplaces are supposed to revolve around them, but this took this to an entirely new level. I'm not defending Eric Swallow. I just thought, like, as a weird moment in American history, this was one of them anyway, we should move off this and get to the more important matters, like the war. Eli we were all nervous that something untoward was happening last week, that Trump was looking for an off ramp or was gonna end this war or whatever we have here in some kind of state of complete indeterminacy, and that he had empowered the person in his administration most associated with not wanting this war to happen in the first place. And I don't think that's where we are here on Monday morning.

[Eli Lake]

No, we are not there. I think you summed it up really well. As I wrote in my column on it, you know, Iran's leadership, you know, the line on Iran is that they've never won a war and they've never lost a negotiation. Well, they ran into J.D. vance, who I think was there loyally representing the Trump position. And it comes down to this idea that Iran has a right to enrich uranium. That is an absurdity, but we should understand what a huge concession that was even before the Obama administration and John Kerry finally got what's known as the jcpoa. Not a treaty kind of an agreement, like, very difficult to parse exactly what it was. But before that, just to get to the negotiations that led to the jcpoa, John Kerry, who was then Secretary of State, said that the United States recognized Iran's right to enrich uranium, which means that that is the predicate for allowing the Iranians to keep their industrial enrichment program if they promise to enrich at certain levels and never use it to make weapons grade fuel. That has been Trump's red line. It was one of the main reasons that he withdrew from that agreement in 2018. There is now a kind of narrative spin that former Counterterrorism center director Joe Kent is pushing and Trita Parsi and others are echoing, which says that no enrichment is the Israeli red line, but the real American red line should allow for enrichment because the Iranians would never accept no enrichment. And that's kind of the point. But obviously that's Trump's red line. And the point is, is that in some ways it matters a lot less because all of their enrichment plants are inoperative. According to Netanyahu, what he said over the weekend in a speech about the war. And I think that's right, we've rubbleized a lot of it, but that's the point. And the fact that the Iranians, given the state of their largely destroyed nuclear program, are still insisting on the right to enrichment, which no other country, by the way. There's lots of countries that have nuclear programs, and the deal is that they're not allowed to enrich the uranium in the country and they get the benefit of nuclear power without the ability to make a nuclear weapon. That was the standard US Policy, was kind of the standard world policy for the nuclear Non proliferation Treaty. So this exemption that we carved out for Iran is being revoked and in many ways has been revoked. If that's the main sticking point, then I don't know where we're going to go because I don't know why the Iranians would even insist at this point. They're like almost, you know, over time it's going to cost them hundreds of billions, if not a trillion dollars to try to get to where they were.

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Seth Vandell]

You know who has studied the maps? Kamala has studied the maps.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Kamala loves maps and I'm sure her reading of the maps is as accurate as her reading of the maps in Rafah. But you just want to look at a map. So it's essentially a kind of choke point. It leads to a. It's sort of, it's like, it's like a shaped like an arrowhead. It leads to a point on one side or the Gulf States, Oman and So the other side is Iran and closing the strait, which is, I think, 13 miles wide at its widest point or something like that, all that means is that because Iran sits on one side, it can shoot at boats which need to go into the strait to go to a refinery to load oil that then needs to come back out of the refinery into the open Indian Ocean and then sail on. So the. But that's also how Iran gets its oil out. Iran gets its all out through the Strait of Hormuz. So when Iran said, we're blockading the Strait of Hormuz, or they didn't quite say it that way, but they said we're closing it, there's a little bit of a suggestion, if you follow this, if the strait is really closed, and this is what Trump is now daring of Bart in Blazing Saddles, putting the gun to his own head and saying, one move and the end gets it. Because Iran depends on the Strait of Hormuz being open as much, if not more, as everybody else depends on the Strait of Hormuz being open. Therefore, if the United States announces it is blockading the Strait of Hormuz, it is now saying, okay, Bart, shoot yourself in the head.

[Eli Lake]

Okay, can I wait,

[Jon Podhoretz]

Abe. Let Abe go, and then you go, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, well, my understanding is that we're just blockading ships going to and from Iranian ports.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right, but that's the same thing. In other words, if Iran says we're blockading anybody that we're not getting paid off by, we're saying we're blockading Iran. They're the ones that.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, but we're letting other. But there's. There's, as you said, there's. There's other Gulf ports.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, there are passages. Yeah, right. There's the sort of Omani passage, and there's the Iranian passage. I'm just saying that Iran, by saying it, was going to close the Strait of Hormuz, exposed. Okay, Eli, you want it. You want to talk? So you go, sorry.

[Eli Lake]

I think the cinematic reference is a Bronx tale, the. The great Chaz Palmieri film, in which there's a scene in which

[Jon Podhoretz]

not Tara Palmeri, Chaz Palminteri, okay, Self, Palm Terry,

[Eli Lake]

where this is about a kind of local mafia boss and everything, but a gang of bikers comes in and goes to one of their kind of local bars, and there's. They're acting hostile and so forth. And, you know, Chaz comes in, he's playing Sonny, the mafia guy, and he says, is there a problem? And they say, no, we just want a Couple beers. Okay. Spoken like a gentleman. And then they spray the poor bartender, and then he locks the door and he says, now youse can't leave. And all of the other mafiosos come in through the basement entrance and beat the crap out of them. That is sort of what Trump is doing. He's like, okay, you want to. You want to. You think. You think you're the madman? No, I'm the madman. I'm gonna shut the whole thing down. And now you're not gonna get any revenue. And try explaining that to China. Try explaining that to China. Cuz I think he knows something that hasn't been made public. This is what I suspect. I haven't reported it out yet, but what I think happened was when he threatened to bomb the power plants, I don't think it moved the Iranian regime. The five Trump charge. Right?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Eli Lake]

Right. I think it freaked out China, and I think China told Iran they've got to agree to something and start talking this out and de. Escalating. And I think that this is also aimed directly at China. Like, China has so much more to lose by having the strait closed more and having. And Iran has a lot to lose. So basically Trump's like, if my allies can't get their oil to market, then you can't get yours to market. And that means you, you, China. And that right there, I think, is creating a lot of leverage. Add to that that CENTCOM has announced a mission to try to clear whatever mines are in the strait at this point. And I think that he has turned this one piece of leverage from Iran into a piece of leverage for the United States and Iranians.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Let's talk about what happened that led us to this point where we have now pulled this arrow out of our quiver that we didn't want to use ordinarily or in the course of human history. One of the ways wars start without shooting is a blockade. In other words, we would have blockaded the Strait of Hormuz to begin with, or the Iranian access to the Strait of Hormuz as the opening gambit in a war, not something that happens two months later. That's the classic war, is that you try to choke people off economically and then you start firing here. We weren't doing that because I think there was an unrealistic hope that this war could be fought and that the oil shock could be. What do you, you know, absorbed in some fashion by letting there be free flow of oil, including Iranian oil. Oil would flow, we'd bomb them, but we wouldn't we would try to mitigate whatever horror the markets might feel by making sure that there was no interruption. Now we're six, seven weeks into this war. Trump needs to win the war. And we're now doing what probably in some classic Clausewitzian sense should have been done first, which is cut the Iranians off economically when they're broke. Cut them off entirely from the thing that makes them important to China when they're broke. But this inventive effort to fight a war with an oil state while allowing it to remain a player in the oil market clearly made it easier for them to absorb the blows of the war. And now he's going at that. How does Eliana, does that sort of conform with your sense of what's happening? You're on mute. You're on mute. Okay, there we go.

[Eliana Johnson]

Sorry.

[Jon Podhoretz]

That's okay.

[Eliana Johnson]

I just wanted to add. So the straight is. You're right. It's very informative to look at a map. It's 21 miles wide at the narrowest point. It's a little bit wider, but the actual shipping lanes are just two miles wide. And the thing we haven't mentioned, but it's sort of obvious, is that about half of Iran, Iran's or the regime's revenue comes from oil and gas. And, and this is aiming to cut that off entirely, cut off the revenue that they derive from their oil exports and to demonstrate to the world that they cannot hold the strait hostage. This is also, by the way, what we did in Venezuela. And I think there's an effort to demonstrate that we can do the same thing in the strait. Moving this, you know, from a military operation, and this is using the military, obviously, but to an economic operation. And I think it's important to remember that what drove the protests in January was the economic crisis in the regime. And I've wondered in the back of my head whether this operation to cut off the oil revenues is not intended to drive people out in the streets, which, you know, the president had said people are not likely to come out and protest when bombs are flying. So now bombs aren't flying, but we're going to twist the screws economically.

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Seth Vandell]

I don't, you know, my. My sense is I don't think that Bibi believes that they've run out of targets. And, and I think that the best way to understand this particular speech, press conference, whatever you want to call it, is imagine it were not Bibi giving that roundup, that summation of the war. What would Bibi say? And I think that Bibi would sound much like his opposition, which is that he would say that it was, you know, unfulfilled potential in the, you know, in the war itself. So I don't think that Bibi thinks they've run out of targets. I think that he is deferring to Trump. Obviously, one country is the superpower here. And he also knows that,

[Jon Podhoretz]

you know,

[Seth Vandell]

Israel is getting hit from all sides now in America by the idea that this was Israel's fault and Israel's war. And, you know, Bibi always wanted this, but he couldn't find somebody to do it until he found Trump or something like that. And so I think Bibi is playing very cautiously in how he expresses his opposition to the idea that the war has concluded and there's nothing left to do. So I think he's trying to be diplomatic, but I don't think that he's satisfied, and I don't think that his speech came across as a guy who feels triumphant. So, you know, the main danger to him is the election coming up and the idea that if Iran is left in too similar position after this big co war that's been waiting in the wings for 30 years, then I guess Bibi's lost it and it's time for someone else or whatever is what the opposition would say. He has to find a way to counter that without crossing Trump, without saying Trump is wrong or Trump is foolish for stopping this now. Now.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, but he did say, he did talk about Lebanon. So Israel's fighting on two fronts, right? It's fighting in Iran, and its effort is now to defang or basically do what it can to obliterate Hezbollah in Lebanon. And he said for the first really explicit moment that in six hours they had destroyed Hezbollah's much of. I don't know what he said, half of Hezbollah's offensive capacity in six hours. We had heard that they had run an incredibly significant operation, I think, on Wednesday, but we were not given the details. Defense Minister Katz was kind of like, crowing and strutting around very proudly, but they wouldn't reveal the details. Something happened, an operation happened, where simultaneous Hezbollah command and control locations were hit, sort of in a beeper way. They were all hit at once at the same time. And apparently this was very significant. So if there's two fronts and they have to fight against Hezbollah, which they still have to do, and Hezbollah is still raining rockets down on Israel as we speak, on the north in particular, they've been given a bit of a breather by the ceasefire to do that. And they're at the ready if there's a shooting war to be had with Iran or to resume with Iran, they're at the ready having had a week's break.

[Seth Vandell]

That's why I say this is for. Just real quick. That's why I say this was for public consumption and for the campaign, Right? Because, you know, they did do something last week, and he might be right about everything that they accomplished. But because it's not public and it's not some. And it's not flashy and people didn't, you know, it's not. It's not bombing Nasrallah in his bunker while. While Bibi is giving a speech at the UN in Turtle Bay, Right. It's not something that everybody knows happened or understands the extent of. And so he's left trying to convince People, you know, they may, the public may come away from this saying, I doesn't look that different. And Bibi's just trying to say, I promise you it's different.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Eli, can we do a little press bashing in the moment?

[Eli Lake]

Can I just really go, yes, really quick on Lebanon? Yeah, I think the sort of intense bombing on Wednesday, the announcement that we've hit a lot of things. There are going to be people who are going to spin that as a walk down. Not at all. Because what did Israel get? It got face to face negotiations with the elected government of Lebanon to effectively negotiate the demise of Hezbollah. So if you can get a kind of, I don't know, a veneer, a cover of the Lebanese government announcing that they're going to be like the main people leading the operations with Israeli support because they don't have the capability at this point to take out Hezbollah, that's a political sea change. It discredits the argument that Israel's haters in the region and America are making that it's somehow what Israel's doing is ethnic cleansing or another genocide. Whatever they're gonna say, and they'll still say it, but the reality is, is that Israel is supporting a Lebanese government operation to take out what is effectively a fifth column in their government that had undermined its sovereignty for 20 years. Iran is not part of those negotiations. They explicitly said, we don't want Iran determining the fate of Lebanon. Wow, that's huge. They'd already kicked out the Iranian ambassador. So my view is that even though this looks like a walk back, it's actually a win. Even though everybody knows that if it was just left to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army, they don't have the capability to take on even the remnants of Hezbollah. Maybe they do. I don't know. They're pretty diminished at this point. But if they can do that with Israeli assistance, that's huge for Israel, that is. The message that Israel needed to send after October 7th was, don't mess with us, we'll destroy you. Now the message has to be, we're a responsible regional actor. You can trust us to be the hegemon of the Middle East. This is a great step towards that. And I think that we should understand that this is actually a brilliant piece of statecraft from Bibi and not necessarily, you know, him kind of, you know, losing a round or something like that or the way that was originally spun.

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Seth Vandell]

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[Seth Vandell]

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[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Eliana Johnson]

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[Jon Podhoretz]

Christine, as our former media commentary columnist in your previous role as media commentary columnist, want to read something? A piece from the New York Times this morning because it gets to this point, which is what is it that Israel is feeling and where Israel stands on this war? Because reading the American press about American Jewish public opinion shifting, as is American opinion shifting against Israel or being unsympathetic to Israel or thinking that things aren't going right with Israel. David Halbfinger has published a news analysis in the New York Times this morning reporting from Jerusalem. And here is what he says. The 40 day war with Iran and the ongoing war with Hezbollah have left many despairing over how little they believe the fighting accomplished, particularly compared to what they have been promised, according to two new polls. Okay, so meaning the Israelis think it stinks. And this, I think is what Seth is responding to in saying that Bibi needed to come out and try to put a good face on what was going on. Okay, so here is what the two poles, as he himself, Helfinger says say about Israel. And this is why the piece seems to want to echo that. Just like in America, Israel thinks it's losing the war and it stinks. And everybody hates Netanyahu and all of that. So one poll says a third of Israelis, barely a third of Israelis believe that when Israel and the United States disagree, Israel can act on its own judgment. Okay, according to an opinion poll released Sunday by the INSS in Tel Aviv, since Israel's also 90% of Israelis like and trust Trump. I'm not sure that this supposedly represents something if Israel and the United States can't disagree. But what the United States is doing is something with which most Israelis agree that wouldn't seem to be a great negative. It's number One. Number two is this. A separate poll by the Agam Institute and the Hebrew University found that three times as many Israelis see the war as a failure than a victory. Some 70% believe the ceasefire reflects an American concession to Iran, and 2/3 oppose it. Why am I bringing this up? Because. Note that they think it's a failure because they don't like the ceasefire. And they think the ceasefire is an indication, not that the war is a failure because it hasn't achieved its aims, but because they're worried that America was about to bug out and that the ceasefire was bad, not that the war was bad. And this piece is released Monday morning after the ceasefire had fallen apart. And therefore the data in the poll are completely outdated because they reflect a prior reality, which is that the ceasefire was in place, and Trump, essentially, by saying we're closing the strait or closing the Iranian strait this morning, ended the ceasefire. So the New York Times wants Americans and its readers to believe that Israelis are pessimistic about what's gone on here, which, from everything that I've been able to glean, is simply not true. And that what Seth was saying is that the Israelis are worried that the job isn't going to be finished. And Eli is saying Israelis are worrying too much. Israel is finishing, maybe finishing the job in an incredibly innovative and epic changing way. Where do you stand on this New York Times story? Not that I've given you much room since.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, I didn't read the New York Times story. I'm sorry.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, you. By the way, it's very short. It's literally six paragraphs long. So I read you half of it. So, just so you know.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, I do.

[Seth Vandell]

No one would. You can just. You're supposed to just pretend you read it. I mean, no one would call you on it otherwise. What kind of pundit admits to not having.

[Jon Podhoretz]

That's.

[Christine Rosen]

That's committing auto. Pundicide, Seth, I refuse to do that. No, I. Two things jump out at me about that story because I was struck over the weekend and there was a very grudging line or two in a New York Times editorial about the war which said, you know, Americans shouldn't really be wishing for Iran to win this either. And it was a sort of dead giveaway of exactly the tone of the coverage of this war that we've talked about a lot. And then I think from what you've said about that piece of. Reflects it as well. The fact that they're trying to export the same viewpoint to Israel is funny, considering, as you say, the notable support for the Trump administration and for this conflict. I am, though, interested in that question of how do we define victory and how does Israel define victory? Are those going to look the same? I was heartened in the. Even though the, you know, 24 hour negotiation, a thon collapsed in Pakistan, that Vance came out and said they our red line is the nuclear material. They cannot have that. I was glad to see that emphasized over and over again after these negotiations fell. I think the. I'm a little skeptical about whether long term the strategy of the blockade will work, just because as a temporary measure, I think it's great. But, you know, the IRGC still has a lot of these small boats that they can use to attack and harass ships. Will we have the ability and the courage to sustain this blockade when our ships start getting hit or if someone, if a mine, we hit a mine and there are any casualties? So I think my question for the administration is, is the goal to get Iran back to the negotiating table, is that the goal of this? This. Because what we saw in Pakistan pretty clearly is that for Iran, victory is just continuing to survive. Victory for us is going to look different. We have very legitimate demand. So that's where I see this blockade being maybe a near term effective tool. But we will have to back it up, most likely with a return to some sort of targeted campaign. Maybe we do have to hit Carg Island. I think, I think the blockade is only going to be a temporary solution for now. That's at least where, where I see things as of the end of the weekend.

[Jon Podhoretz]

That's a very rational way of looking at this. Obviously, we can't just, you know, you know, I mean, we. No, and I mean rational in the sense that obviously Trump has now put his money where his mouth is. He's saying, the strait is closed to Iran. We're going to try to keep it open. And Iran is saying, you're not going to close the strait. We're going to fire on you. I mean, like I say, okay, so we have 15 ships.

[Eli Lake]

The Navy ships have guns.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah, the Navy ships have guns. The oil tankers don't have guns. The Navy ships have guns. And as Eliana points out, the area that we're talking about at its narrowest point is two miles. And we also have these boats that we have had since World War II called minesweepers. And I looked it up and minesweepers in the, both in the Pacific and Atlantic, North Atlantic theaters in World War II, cleared, captured, disabled, whatever, something like 6,000 mines between the Japanese and the Nazis. This is a very old technology dealing with laying mines and clearing mines. This is not, you know, this is not 21st century dronage. This is very old and we actually know how to clear mines. Trump says the Iranians don't even know where the mines are because they've lost their mine. He used a term, their mine getting capacity or their mine ship hunting capacity or something they dropped.

[Seth Vandell]

John, A mine is a terrible thing to waste.

[Jon Podhoretz]

You're just sitting there trying to think of one liners that's it's good, it's good it's released, but anyway, they don't know. Trump said the Iranians don't know where the mines are, but we do. And we can find them and we can clear them if in fact we can. And we can clear the mines, which is a very delicate process, don't get me wrong. And by the way, if you want to know what a minesweeper is, go watch the Kane Mutiny. The USS Cain is a minesweeper. Probably the best known novel About World War II movie about World War II fighting in the Pacific. It's a complicated thing to do to sweep mines, but we know how to do it. We've known how to do it for eight decades and so we can do it. So that's one thing that we can take off their strategic map, which is they've laid mines. Trump said there's 30 mines, we can get them. Then there's the question of drones. Right.

[Christine Rosen]

There are, by the way, but there are small, they're not mines, but small boats can come up to the hull of a big ship and attach an explosive to it. So there's, there's that the small ships also have to.

[Jon Podhoretz]

But. Right. So if we're going to keep it open, we're obviously going to do this thing that we said we weren't going to do, which is escorting or being around or tracking these ships the way you can track ships. I mean, it's not like they're going to be 5,000 ships a day suddenly that you can have a boat, you know, like climb up to. I mean, we obviously have eyes, eyes on the place. This mission. If the United States isn't capable of keeping this waterway open by closing it, or we're closing it by opening it. I mean, that's part of the conundrum here, is that we are, what they want to do is come up aside our ships that are closing it and bedevil us. And that I think we can handle. Eli.

[Eli Lake]

Like I also think, but no, I just want to say, I just think, you know, Christine, I appreciate what you're saying, but if you add two things, the sophistication of the American Navy plus our extraordinary ISR capabilities, I think that, you know, America and Israel win against the equivalent of like the IRGC is like Miami Vice villains, which are like unspeakable speedboats and, you know, use. I mean, I'm just saying. Yes, I get it, it's a threat. We don't want to have boots on the ground, on the shore. And I think eventually someone is going to have to do that. But this is not an insurmountable military challenge. Given what I understand, especially the intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance capabilities of the United states are in 2026, I think we're going to be able to sort of see these little things as they crop up and probably take them out. I'm not saying that it's not going to get dicey at a certain point, but.

[Christine Rosen]

No, I agree. And I, and I hope I think that's correct. I would just, I guess my larger question is what does the diplomatic victory look like for us with regard to the nuclear materials, with regard to sort of long term control of the strait?

[Jon Podhoretz]

I totally agree with you on our

[Eli Lake]

strategic, on the nuclear materials. You know, my understanding, I mean, like, listen, we have to acknowledge that there might be, there's some unknown here. There's something called Pickaxe Mountain. Apparently it's not online. And there is this, you know, 900 to 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium, around 60%. But if it is, as Trump has constantly said, buried under, you know, these rubbled, you know, former enrichment facilities, and given the fact that Iran doesn't have any other components really working of their nuclear program, yes, eventually we should owe secure that. But it's not an immediate problem. I mean, it's like if they manage to miraculously get it, how are they going to enrich it? And if we also.

[Jon Podhoretz]

It's important to know, it's important to note, not that I think we should act as if we should act as if they have it. We only know they have it because they told us five days before the war started, when they went to the negotiation before the war started and they went, nyah, nya, nyah, we have 800 power, 900 pounds of material. You think we don't, but we do. Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. Which was this sort of interesting tactic to get us to forestall our fight in the war, since our whole purpose was we're saying you can't get a nuclear weapon they're like, well, we have enough for a nuclear weapon. It's like, okay, good, we're about to start bombing you.

[Eli Lake]

Then,

[Jon Podhoretz]

like Saddam said, if you said, I don't have it, I don't have it. Why are you bothering me? And we said, we don't believe you here. They said, we have it. And we're like, okay, we believe you. You have it. We're gonna. You have now just eliminated any reason for us to forestall our military adventure here. Abe, you wanna. Yeah, I just wanna weigh in, just

[Abe Greenwald]

jump back to that. The Israeli poll story. I think part of what that's about. Big part of what that's about is about this recent narrative being crafted, that all of this is the fault of Bibi, the lone madman on a crusade who doesn't even have the support of the Israelis in this. I think that's the narrative that we see the legacy media and good. Many others trying to put in place. So if they can get some semblance of a poll together, that if you squint and you ignore the fact that it's out of date. By the way, something about Trump's actions here is he sort of renders everything out of date, every. All coverage immediately because he switches it up by the hour, that they can further push this idea that Bibi and Bibi alone caused this war, caused the rupture between American public opinion and Israel, and sacrificed the American Israeli relationship and all that.

[Seth Vandell]

Seth, I just, I think, isn't the idea that the Iranians dropped mines that they can't find, isn't that proof that this needs to be fixed in a. In a holistic way before moving on? I mean, in all seriousness, if, if they are. If this is a splintered government and it's now just, you know, and it's now just the IRGC running around dropping mines, but without the naval. Right. The IRGC isn't the Navy, they're the speedboats. Like, you know, you know, Eli was. Was saying, theoretically, the IRGC is one thing, the Navy is the other. And I don't know how much they talk to each other, but especially now in that situation, if they're just going to go around dropping mines, but they don't have a coordinated state apparatus to follow up on that and mark them and know where to get them and all that stuff that you would normally go through with a functioning government and a functioning relationship between, between whoever's dropping the mines and the Navy and all that stuff, you can't possibly be left in this position. You can't possibly be left in a position of, I sometimes drop mines in the Strait of Hormuz and I have no idea where they are. You know, like my kid, we do this with my kids in their shoes. And it's like, well, the shoe is wherever you took your shoe off. You know, they have no idea. This is like, you know, okay, so somebody has to be in charge of the shoes here. And it's not the three year old. Right, because he's going to lose the shoes under the couch or whatever. This is Iran absolutely cannot be. Another argument that Trump is right to want to see this addressed, but also that all aspects of the Strait and its protection have to be fixed, including, you know, monitoring Iranian access to it.

[Jon Podhoretz]

That's a very good point. And it's also, yes, that if the Iranians are going to leave a mess behind in the Strait of Hormuz, somebody's got to clean it up. And they clearly don't even have the capacity to clean it up. So one way or another, this is going to happen simply as a matter of international economic hygiene, so that some tanker doesn't hit a stray mine that's been left there floating in the water and then creates a gigantic environmental catastrophe with millions of barrels on fire.

[Eli Lake]

Eli, can I just add one other thing to just make us on my optimism riff. What has been the Iranian message and spin since the negotiations broke down? It has not been, death to America. We're building a nuke, prepare to die. It hasn't been, we're gonna go and take out all these vessels. And you better watch it, buddy. It's been, we were to go, we were so close. And then at the very last minute, they make these unreasonable demands. I think it's Israel. I mean, like, that's what they're saying. That's what Golubov and all these other people are saying. Their message is, we were really being accommodating for 20 hours. And in the 21st hour, Trump got on the phone and made it impossible to reach anything. And so that also tells me that they don't really have much leverage yet. They love to make threats. They're not like, you know, threat. Their position has been, we were the reasonable ones, we wanted to make a deal. And then you guys came in with this no enrichment demand, and we can't do it. But that tells me that there's, like, pressure from China behind the scenes or something, because the Chinese don't like unaccounted minds in the Strait of Hormuz. That's very bad for them. That's very bad for the fact because they rely on it at this point. This is really. This has the potential to, like, nuke China's economy more than anyone else.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Trump has issued, as we have been speaking a truth on the very subject that we're talking about right now, which reads as follows. Iran's navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of what they call fast attack ships, because we did not consider them much of a threat. Warning, if any of those ships come anywhere close to our blockade, they will be immediately eliminated. Capital letters, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at sea. It is quick and brutal. P.S. 98.2% of drugs coming into the US by ocean or sea have stopped. Thank you for this attention. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President djt, President Crockett and Tubbs. There you go. Okay, so I don't think that, like, resolves or should hearten or make Christine feel as though, you know, we're now all safe from the attack boats, but at least what it does say is that, is that they're on the radar of this mission and that it is understood that they represent maybe the only serious existing threat exactly as you describe it, and that there will be a strategy to counter it. So how we define victory? This is actually, I literally just finished editing a piece by John Schanzer that will be in our May issue on the very subject of how do you define victory in a world in which you have antagonists who will never concede defeat? Jihadists won't concede defeat. Hezbollah won't concede defeat. Hamas doesn't concede defeat. The Iraqis didn't concede defeat. All of that, like the Iranians, will never concede defeat. So can you defeat somebody who doesn't concede defeat? I think the answer logically is, of course, yes, you can. That defeat doesn't require somebody saying uncle. It requires whoever the person is who should say uncle losing all their capability to be a threat like that is defeat. There's a lot of people in the world who are not going to want to grant Donald Trump or Bibi Netanyahu the credit for having achieved that. If there is no piece of paper that says, yes, I law, I am Robert E. Lee, and I concede that we've lost the war, or, I'm Emperor Hirohito on the. On, you know, I'm on the USS Missouri surrendering to the United States. That doesn't happen. Can you win? A lot of people are going to want to say, no, you can't win, and that they didn't win and that the Iranians are still standing. So they're stronger than they were before, which, again, is a kind of Obi Wan Kenobi theory of fighting, where they kill you, but you're stronger dead than you were alive.

[Abe Greenwald]

So it's a logical obscenity because it would mean that every power or force that decides that it will never admit defeat will always win. I mean, that's just ridiculous. You don't need a nuke. You don't need the ability to choke off the Straits. You just say, we will never say we lost. And therefore, that means we have never lost.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Iran turned the tide of this war, if you want to say it did, which I don't think it did. But by saying we are threatening the Strait of Hormuz. So Trump has now called their bluff and said, oh, yeah, we're threatening the Strait of Hormuz. We're threatening your Strait of Hormuz. You want $2 billion for every ship to come in. They're not coming in. You want to send your boats out? Your boats are not going out. How do you like them apples? So I think, as Trump would say, what card. What card do they have to play? The only card they can play is starting a shooting war with us in the straight. I mean, what else do they. I'm just logically trying to think this through. Where are they now?

[Eli Lake]

Let's broaden the aperture just slightly, which is that Tom Friedman said it best, right? He said, Iran's terrible and it's good. They should be defanged. And he gets it. Like, in that sense. But on the other hand, Trump and Netanyahu are criminal threats to our democracies, and. And they can't have a win. And Tom Friedman, or if Tom Friedman readers are listening to this podcast, I have a message for you. If Iran loses and you accept the reality that this threat of an Iranian nuke, which has bedeviled American presidents for a quarter century, has now been pretty much dealt with, maybe they will be suicidal and they'll try to build it again and we'll have to bomb it again, but at this point, it is really taken care of in a way, and that's good for the world. Don't worry about it. You know, it's not going to mean that Republicans are going to win the midterm. The history of these things is that the glory is fleeting. Look at George H.W. bush after winning the Gulf War or Winston Churchill after winning World War II. They then went on to lose elections. So this is a fake choice. You don't have to think of it existentially. And you can, you know, you could still think that Trump is a terrible threat to the Constitution and everything like that and recognize that this war was necessary and successful. It's not that hard because. So I think they're getting themselves in the knots for no good reason. And my hope actually would be that this school of foreign policy thought that says that you have to get the Iranians to agree not to. I mean, like, give me a break. We took it away from them. And at this point, you know, the JCPOA logic, the Obamas, I believe this war, among other things, is discrediting that entire approach. And that's okay. You can still probably have your political victory at some point. It just means that you cannot say that everything that Trump does is terrible and, you know, move on.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So let's talk about a Trump political defeat. Cause we should maybe get to this as well. Right. Viktor Orban lost yesterday in hungary after his 16 year rule. And he didn't just lose. I mean, he was wiped. His party was wiped out, the Fidesh party. The opposition now has a supermajority. It won, you know, basically 2 3rd now is 2 thirds of the parliament. And of course, Vance was sent over to try to help. And every time it appears Trump now tries to involve himself in local elections here or abroad, the results are very ambiguous at best. Maybe he can affect Republican primaries. It's like, I don't know if you're, if you're a candidate running for office this midterm, whether it's going to be a good idea or a bad idea to have Trump come in and try to help you is very, very unclear. So I do want to point out that one thing in Eli's estimation about where this goes is we were told that Orban had essentially become Putin, that he had choked off all opposition routes, that he was an autocrat who had created conditions under which he had changed the fundamental nature of Hungary's government and civil society so that he could not lose. And then he turns around, he doesn't only lose, he loses an election that has essentially discredited him almost forever. Christine, what do you make of this?

[Christine Rosen]

Well, I think the message about Orban's defeat lands differently in the United States and particularly in the media, than what actually led to his defeat by his own countrymen. And that was the message of corruption that the opposition was hammering over and over again. It was. And, and they could see the results of 16 years of Orban. He didn't increase the birth rate, the economy wasn't improving. All of the things he had promised with his revolutionary approach to governance didn't pan out. And I think that with the absolutely relentless message of corruption is what was his undoing. The guy who won is very, very conservative. He's not some, you know, he's not the kind of liberal that liberals in our country would love to embrace. So I think that should be a bit of a warning to any populist movements, but particularly to maga, which has made a lot of promises about bringing back manufacturing jobs, about the kind of family based policies that Orban championed and that had this intellectual, very small but influential intellectual class of Americans who would travel back and forth and praise Orban's grand experiment. So, you know, it should be a little bit of a humbling reminder to them that results still matter and corruption remains a very powerful tool that I am quite sure the Democrats will be using in the midterms. But I think looking ahead to 2028, whoever wants to get themselves on the Republican ticket, they're going to have to talk, they're going to have to answer to some of the issues of corruption that I'm sure we're going to see brought to the fore, particularly if there's a Democratic Congress.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I just want to point out that the rhetoric of the people with whom I think largely agree about the importance of democracy and all that, but the rhetoric that has overtaken liberal defenders of democracy over the last 10 years involving Trump and his, he's going to suspend the election. He's going to look for a third term. He didn't concede the election in 2020, which he didn't. And that was shameful and terrible. And he should have been impeached for it a second, you know, he should have been convicted for it in my view, after January 6th. Nonetheless, what they lay out is he's Hitler. He's Hitler. This is the Reichs that were in 1933. I don't know who Hindenburg is in this formula, but according to Bob Kagan, we're already, it's already 1934 or something like that. And the Orban result just proves how preposterous this argument is. Even a country that's only been a democracy for 35 years, since the collapse of the Cold War in Hungary, where, granted, Orban took all kinds of steps to centralize control and power in his own hands for his own political and ideological purposes, is nonetheless capable of being, you know, kicked to the curb. And Republicans are clearly going to get kicked to the curb in 2026. Cook Political Report is now getting very close to saying that Republican the Democrats are going to take the Senate. Eliana Right. That's the latest is like North Carolina shifted toward the Democrats various places that look like they were toss ups, maybe Alaska. There's there, there is a map of North Carolina there, there is a map that looks like Democrats will not only win the House commandingly, but will take the Senate, which will, by the way, effectively end the Trump administration's ability to maneuver freely. So some autocracy these, this is one lousy autocracy that's being set up here.

[Eliana Johnson]

Yeah, well, I've long been of the view that, sure, I think if President Trump had his druthers, he'd be an autocrat. He'd love to rule by fiat, but we have a system that constrains him. And I actually think January 6th demonstrated that in many ways. And you're right, the midterms, I think are going to be incredibly tough for Republicans. I am skeptical Democrats will take the Senate. You're right. North Carolina is competitive. Republicans and Trump, Trump himself. When Lara Trump decided not to run in North Carolina, Republicans cleared the field for Michael Whatley, the former RNC chairman who's a weak candidate. And Chuck Schumer has done pretty good job recruiting candidates. But up in Maine and this we don't have much time left, but we can have a longer discussion about this stuff. It does look like Graham Platner is going to defeat Janet Mills, the sitting governor. And I think that's actually going to hurt Democrats. I've said not to underestimate Platner, who I think is quite talented. But I think Platner will be a weak general election candidate in Maine against Susan Collins. So there are some bright spots for Republicans. So I don't think Democrats will end up taking the Senate, though I'm not counting them totally out. But if I had to place my bets now, I don't think they're going to take the Senate for some reasons like that.

[Jon Podhoretz]

But most importantly, here in the United

[Eliana Johnson]

States, Trump is not a dictator.

[Jon Podhoretz]

That is Nazi Germany. The House of Representatives is going Democratic. So bully for Bob Kagan in the Atlantic and everybody who told us that Orban was the new Putin and that Trump is the new Hitler because they're looking foolish, short sighted, hysterical and frankly pompous and kind of creepy.

[Eliana Johnson]

One other thing about Orban, and I'm far from an expert on Hungary and Hungarian elections, but it's my understanding that it's actually changes Orban implemented in Hungary's voting system that hurt him. And Orban has conceded defeat. Okay. He's not January, he's not even January sixing the elections. He's conceded. So.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Eliana Johnson]

Also an interesting fact.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Christine Rosen]

The note, I think you're right about the hyperbole, certainly the comparisons to Hitler, which we've been hearing since 2015 about Don, Donald Trump, I mean, those have worn out any sort of tolerance for comparison. I think what, what has always been missing in the opposition to Trump is a thoughtful and critical view of the ways in which as president, he has stress tested our institutions in a way no other president has. I mean, there's a recent story about him trying to change what kinds of documents the archives can store from his administration and a kind of bid to make sure that stuff doesn't get archived so future historians can't actually write history. That kind of stuff, of course, enrages me. But it is but is those kinds of tests of the institutions, most of which have been stopped by the courts so far, some of which is Congress, for example, senators saying if you bring this nominee forward, we won't, you know, just forget about it. So, so a lot of it's behind the scenes, but we shouldn't underestimate. I think it's, if you're a conservative, you should care deeply about how he has constantly tried to sort of flex a little autocratic muscle and in most cases has been pushed back, showing that our institutions are strong, but that itself, that process can nevertheless degrade a country's sort of moral bearings in terms of what is the role of the executive. And so those sorts of things, I think that's the tone that I think has always been missing from the opposition, unfortunately, because we need a healthy opposition in a country anytime, particularly when one party is controlling two of three branches of government.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Seth?

[Seth Vandell]

Yeah, I also think that there's a, and I'm not what abouting anything here. I just, I think that there's a lesson here in when we talk about the threat to democracy. You know, one of the things that's being listed that Orban did to accumulate power is expanded the court and then pack it, you know, with what was it, four new guys or whatever loyal to him or something like that. So, you know, I think that there's one of the things that people say in response to what you're saying that, you know, Trump is not a dictator. This is not the right. Whatever is that. Well, these things are, you know, step by step. It's a boiling frog problem. And, you know, if you don't see this, the individual steps that an authoritarian or a potential authoritarian will take, and you take them all as if they're disconnected or each one is happening in a vacuum, then you'll boil like the frog before you realize what's going on. And I think it's just an important lesson that the things that we see as power grabs in other countries, clearly when we have that discussion in the US we don't have that sense of consensus on, you know, we're still going to have Elizabeth Warren saying expand and pack the court. You know, we'll hear that again. Certainly, by the way, if the midterms go really well for Democrats, we'll probably hear it again. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but we'll hear it. But, you know, it's just, it's one of those things where you say when you, it's like looking at a chess game from the outside. You're like, oh, I can see the clear move, mate in three, you know, if you're the one not playing. And when we look at other countries and we see these things, we go, that's authoritarianism and that's a slippery slope. And we don't necessarily take the lesson back here. We're very good at recognizing it abroad. And that really goes for everybody across the political spectrum.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I gotta say that while I agree that we, that the things are being stress tested and I'm not, I do not, you know, and I don't take that lightly. I do think that there was this moment of transition in the second Obama term that was the glide path to where we are, that Trump didn't incept this out of nowhere. The moment was when Obama said, I have a pen and a phone and I'm not going to expect that the things that I want are going to get through this recalcitrant legislature. So I'm just going to do them on my own and then see if the courts let me go ahead with it. And, and of course, then also Harry Reid blowing up the filibuster when he did, or partially blowing up the filibuster when he did. And this began a kind of period of antinomianism that Trump was the perfect person in his own emotional makeup to try to take advantage of. And fortunately, the system has, I think, had more hold to it than otherwise. But I think we were going down this dance, down this road to antinomianism before. And that had Hillary won, I don't know whether she would have continued. She would have followed along, wouldn't have been as extreme as Trump's path. But Obama basically just began a new way of looking at the presidency that was very, very damaging. And then Biden did exactly the same thing. The COVID measures were an act of extra constitutional outrage, department by department, claiming emergency powers, and then the student loan debt and stuff like that. It's not like Trump did this unilaterally or on his own. Two Democrats and Trump all decided to play this game with our Constitution and with our institutions to our great detriment.

[Eli Lake]

Can I continue in my pangloss spirit of optimism? Here's a silver lining to Democrats winning the House in the midterms. The worst elements of the isolationist, anti Semitic right, the Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nick Fuentes are effectively at this point saying vote for Democrats. Nick Fuentes is saying that explicitly. I really hope that Tucker is like, he's one hair away from that. I think he'll go. I hope he goes there. I don't know. But you will have the worst elements of the coalition that only a few months ago we were worried would, you know, sweep into power when Vance wins the nomination, that will be blamed in part for good reason for when Democrats win the House. And in a few months, everyone on the right will be like, well, this is terrible. I wonder how that happened. And then you will have all of these ready made scapegoats and I am here for it. I've got my popcorn. I'm ready. All right, That's a good sign.

[Christine Rosen]

You're ruining our brand, Eli.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah, I got a quick recommendation and we'll go. Last night I watched the first episode on AMC of a show called the Audacity. This is the second AMC show about Silicon Valley. The first show is called Halt and Catch Fire. It's of course, the third show about Silicon Valley because there was Silicon Valley on hbo, the Mike Judge sitcom. Both Silicon Valley and Halt and Catch Fire were satirical portraits of the rise of the Silicon Valley culture, but quite gentle in certain ways and amused and somewhat supportive and whatever. The Audacity, which is a show about billionaires and a company that is going through a crisis because Apple decides not to take it over. And it is a descent into hell. It is a very bright, cheery, colorful, satirical descent into hell. This is Silicon Valley as the Garden of Earthly Delights. It is dark. It is brilliantly written by a guy named Jonathan Glotzer and an old friend of mine, the novelist Arthur Phillips. It is about a shrink who does insider trading, a psychopath who has a billion dollar company. Everyone is talking about Big Tim, meaning Tim Cook and what he's up to. Zach Galifianakis as some kind of a we don't even know what he does. And then two guys from the Veterans Administration who are just looking for someone to give $250 million to to help them set up the Veteran Administration IT system. It was an amazing pilot, one of the best I've ever seen. You can watch it on AMC or amc. And as I say, as a portrait of the change in American culture's view of Silicon Valley charted through the course of these three shows, Silicon Valley, Halt and Catch Fire and this, it's very telling that we are now basically in the of course, there was also like the Elizabeth Holmes show with Amanda Seyfried, but that was, of course, a true crime story. Really. Anyway, it's a very interesting chart because we have gone from, you know, American optimism about American what would you call, like American innovation to we are descending and these people are dragging us to hell. So I'm going to be very interested to see how it goes. Anyway, Eli Lake, thank you very much for joining with us. We'll be back tomorrow. For Christine, Abe, Seth and Eliana, I'm John Pod Horiz. Keep the candle burning.